Us Against Forever
by an-extraordinary-muse
Summary: This is a place for my Olicity one-shots. I won't call them drabbles because some of them might be pretty long, but the idea applies. Each chapter is a different story, and they aren't linked unless otherwise stated. Most of them will be about how Oliver and Felicity finally get together, but there might be one or two chaps. of established relationship or episode tags. Also, tropes
1. Possession

_**Author's Note: So I decided that I wanted to have a central place to put all of my Olicity one-shots. That's what this is. All of these chapters are stand alone stories and are not connected unless otherwise stated. I don't want to say that these will be drabbles, because not all of them will be (this first chapter is nearly 4500 words), but that's sort of the idea for these.**_

_**Chapter One: Possession.**_

_**Spoilers: None. Not set in a specific time period.**_

_**Summary: Felicity volunteers for a mission that requires entrance into a "discerning gentleman's club". **_

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><p><span><strong><em>Possession<em>**

There is a dichotomy in Oliver that Felicity occasionally has a hard time understanding. She has seen her partner put arrows in a man with enough force to send him careening out of an office window; she has seen him both take and deliver hits that make a sound like thunder when they land; she has seen him sew up tears in his flesh with no anesthesia and little to no sound. Despite all of those things, there is a gentleness in Oliver Queen that, by rights, should not exist. He is a large man with a fearsome glare, and she knows that he couldn't hurt her if his life depended on it.

Felicity thinks it might be a control thing. Certainly a man who has experienced such violence, who has been the cause of such violence in the past, has to make a conscious effort to be so gentle. Oliver could probably crush both of her hands in one of his own if he wasn't paying attention to the pressure he exerted.

Felicity has never been afraid of him. She trusts him not to hurt her, even if can, but she contemplates whether or not he has the same faith in himself. Oliver touches her, but they are always the lightest touches: his fingers skimming over her arm; one hand placed carefully on her shoulder. Sometimes, when she's alone, or overly tired, or even just watching him do circuits on the salmon ladder, Felicity tries to imagine what it takes to get past that gentleness. What it would take _her_ to get past that gentleness, to get him to respond to her as if she were stronger than the thinnest glass. Fear? Is there some situation that could scare Oliver into betraying that gentleness long enough to crush her against his chest? Has he ever been so frightened for someone's life that he just wrapped him or her in those thick arms and hugged them until they couldn't breathe? If there is, Felicity has never met that person, or been in that situation. She and Oliver have been in some desperately grim situations together over the years, and she has never seen such a thing happen.

Maybe Laurel has, or Thea; maybe even Tommy had. No, if anyone has, it's probably Sara, because Oliver knows she's strong enough to handle whatever is there when his gentleness is gone. Sara is like Oliver, iron and muscle and fire; Felicity is gossamer thread and glass.

At least, that's what Oliver must think, because that's how he treats her. Felicity hates that sometimes. She hates that there is more substance to the air she breathes than the way he touches her. The only explanation she can come up with is that Oliver must reserve the real touches for others, the people who fit neatly into one clearly defined box or another. "Family", "lover", "old friend"; maybe these are the only people he lets close enough to know what's under the extreme gentility he shows her.

One night, they argue about whether or not she should be part of a mission. Their target frequents a high-end nightclub that has a reputation as a "discerning gentleman's club". They all know what that means, but none more so than Oliver, because he is from that world of "discerning gentleman". Rich people who use their money to buy silence and discretion, he'd told them. The last time Felicity checked she was the only woman in their operation, so she does the logical thing and volunteers to give them an in; Oliver is refusing before she's finished speaking.

"I can get in," Felicity insists. "I can scope the place out, find the guy and get him somewhere private so you can come in and do your grr thing on him."

"No."

"What other choice is there, Oliver? You can't just go crashing through a nightclub looking for the guy, and neither can Digg or Roy."

"We can wait and catch him somewhere else."

"We've tried that!" she huffs in irritation. "You may have noticed that it hasn't worked, and we're running out of time."

Digg and Roy look uncomfortable with the idea, but she can tell that they know she's right. Nothing else has worked, and Felicity is the only one who can get away with wearing a cocktail dress and not frightening a room full of people.

In the end, Oliver's agreement comes in the form of a lack of argument. He can't bring himself to say yes, but he can't say no, so he doesn't say anything.

They go in the next evening. Felicity can't manage more than one communication frequency through the small ear bud she slips into one ear, so Oliver takes the other one without question. Roy and Digg are given land mobile radios that she's retrofitted with transmission scramblers. Felicity can talk to Oliver, and he can relay the information to the other two.

She knows that the boys are positioned near the three fire exits – one on either side and one in the back – but they can't see into the building. It's up to her to let them know what's happening, and Oliver had told her repeatedly before they'd left that if she so much as breathes in a way that he doesn't like, he's coming in after her. His seriousness reassures her, but it also tells her just what sort of place she's going into, and that scares her.

Like the time she went willingly into an underground casino, Oliver hovers near the entrance and whispers the password to her as she approaches the door. Felicity wants to ask what the hell kind of nightclub requires a password to enter, but is afraid of the answer.

The password tells her what sort of place it is anyway. "Possession," she says when the twin bouncers look at her.

As Felicity passes beneath the pale lights that illuminate the front door, Oliver gets a brief glimpse of her: hair down and curled to hide the ear piece that lets them communicate, in a dress that's short enough to be dangerous; it's green.

His hand clenches around his bow and he slips back through the shadows to his designated perch.

The club is loud but not garish. Felicity stands just inside the door long enough to let her eyes adjust to the different shades of darkness. Everything about the place screams secrets and subterfuge, and she hates it. The people who come here are not looking for fun, but control and release – the only things they care about are the ones that money can buy.

The password makes sense now.

Felicity sees their target in the opposite corner from where she stands. This is not the place for directness, so she steps up to the bar and orders a drink. She tells the bartender she doesn't care what it's called, as long as it's the strongest drink they offer. The way he looks at her makes her think that this is a game, and she's just scored her first point.

She follows a meandering path through the room while watching their target out of the corners of her eyes. Felicity tries to keep up a quiet stream of chatter as she goes, giving Oliver the best description of the layout as she can. She can feel eyes on her but doesn't acknowledge them; that's the same as signing a contract in this club.

Felicity isn't certain how she's going to approach The Man, but she lucks out and he approaches her.

"Hello," he says smoothly. "Can I get you another drink?"

She knows it's a code, because the drink in her hand is less than half empty. "As long as it's the strongest one they make," she answers.

The Man grins at her. "Interesting choice. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer something sweet?"

Felicity understands that this man is one of those looking for control. There's a challenge in his question, an inherent danger lurking in the corners with the words he hasn't said.

"I'd prefer whatever you choose for me." The words are like sawdust in her throat, but they do the trick.

The target assures her he'll be quick and saunters off to the bar. She tries to distract herself from her racing heartbeat and hatred for that man and this place by pressing her back against the wall and tipping her eyes up to the ceiling. She breathes out a chuckle.

"You won't believe this," she tells Oliver as quietly as she can. "There's a skylight. It must be new, because it wasn't on the blueprints."

She can hear Oliver relaying that information to their partners, and then confirming that he's going to resituate himself.

Felicity has believed since she was a child that much of a person's life boils down to luck; all that right place, right time hoopla. Luck is what she calls it when she glances over at the bar just in time to see their target's hand pass over the rim of the martini glass that's obviously meant for her. It's hard to tell in the dim lighting, but she thinks the liquid looks a little too fizzy.

She opens her mouth to tell Oliver that she's ninety percent sure she's about to be roofied, but their target reappears before she can. In all the scenarios they'd anticipated, date rape drugs had not been one of them.

This man is not after control or release – he is after power, and he gets it by stripping other people of theirs. Felicity is suddenly terrified.

He watches her as she brings the glass to her lips. She lets the liquid pass her lips, but doesn't take any of it in, so that it looks like she's drinking but the amount of liquid in the glass doesn't change.

"That color looks a little harsh on you," The Man says.

Felicity has to glance down at herself to see what he's talking about. She'd chosen the dress for the style instead of the color, so she's a little surprised to realize that it's forest green.

"What color should I be wearing?"

"Mm, something softer, I think."

She doesn't know what prompts her to respond the way she does. "Maybe I've had enough soft."

"Be careful," Oliver warns in her ear.

Her tongue is tingling. How much of a date rape drug does it take to render someone unconscious? She's never been roofied before.

The Man moves into her space and Felicity regrets her decision to stand against the wall.

"Have another drink," he says. "Relax. Tell me about yourself. What's your name?"

She knows that names don't matter in this place. She's not sure why he's bothered to ask at all. Felicity had planned to use her middle name, but the idea of sharing any part of herself with this man disgusts her. She pulls a different one out of thin air. "Olivia."

"Tell me about your favorite possession, Olivia."

Felicity knows that he's fishing for something. The right answer, maybe, but she doesn't know what that is. She's an intelligent person, but she is not good at these sorts of games. Everything about this club and this man angers her. She hates that she's here, and that there are people like this in the world, which is why she's here in the first place.

Oliver might think she's made of glass, but this man thinks that she is _a glass_: a decorative and finely wrought thing that can be bought and displayed on a shelf, another in an expensive collection. She's angry at him for thinking that people can be owned – that she can be owned – and frightened because she is way out of her league on this one. Her brain is so busy trying to decide on the best course of action, and decipher his meaning, and complete the mission that she forgets about the drug in her drink. She tosses back a gulp and remembers too late to do anything but swallow it.

"Me," she finally responds, and her voice is low to hide her fear. "I am my favorite possession." Felicity means that she owns herself; that her mind and her body and her soul are the greatest things she will ever own. The statement is meant to be misleading, because she means it one way, and The Man will take it another.

That's the right answer for The Man, and the wrong answer for her. His hand finds its way to her thigh, just below the hem of her dress, and now her entire mouth is tingling. Her head feels a little too light.

"Felicity." Oliver's voice is too tight, too close and too far away to be helpful.

"I think I'm in trouble," Felicity whispers.

"Why would you be in trouble?" The Man's voice is oily and viscous in the darkness.

She sees what's going to happen like it's a movie preview playing before her eyes: she has overplayed her hand, and The Man is going to lead her down some dark hallway where they can be alone. All of which would be exactly as she's planned, if it weren't for the fact that her head has started to feel like it's floating.

Glass is shattering. Felicity casts blurry eyes down at her glass, but it's still in one piece in her hand. She blinks once, hard, and then squints her eyes: no one is in front of her and there are oddly shaped blobs doing somersaults through the patches of light that highlight the room.

Felicity drops the martini glass and tips her head back until it connects with the wall. She tries to pick a thought out of the jumble of them in her brain and focus on it, but it wriggles out of her grasp like a caterpillar. She has to focus. Can a person fight the effects of a roofie, she wonders, or is it already too late?

Cool leather glides over her throat and under her jaw. She jerks automatically, eyes flying open, and even in her less than alert state she recognizes Oliver beneath his hood.

"Are you okay?"

"He totally roofied me." Why is she whispering? "I only had one drink, but I feel … not right."

Oliver uses the hand cradling her jaw to tip her head up a little and stares into her eyes. Felicity doesn't mind because, really, how are his so blue?

"Your pupils are a little dilated," Oliver tells her, "But I think it'll wear off in a few minutes."

"If I were to say something along the lines of this being not my best idea, how quickly would you say I told you so?"

Even in the semi-darkness she can see the little quirk of his lips that is a smile. Mild dose or not, the drug has made her bolder (a little too bold, really) and without thinking she reaches up to brush a thumb over his lips. She's too busy memorizing the smile to notice his expression.

"I like it when you smile." Her thumb drags over his bottom lip as she pulls it away.

Oliver doesn't intend to step forward, but he does. Another half step and Felicity will be pinned between him and the wall; he shouldn't find that idea as enticing as he does. The column of her throat is pale and nearly covered on one side by the breadth of his hand. He wants to ask her if she knows that she'd practically branded herself tonight, wearing a dress that was a near perfect match to his hood and giving herself the feminine version of his name. Did she do those things purposely?

In response, though he's not sure if it's a response to her words or his thoughts, he spreads his thumb over her jaw until it comes to rest in the corner of her mouth. Her breath heats the leather of his glove. Oliver has wanted to kiss this woman for so long that he's half convinced he was born with the desire.

Digg's voice comes over the radio. "The police are outside."

Oliver makes himself step back then. He takes his hand away from Felicity and shoots a zip line through the broken glass in the skylight he'd dropped through, then looks back to her without a word.

Oliver's face is shadowed behind his hood. He stands quietly, unmoving, and Felicity knows that he is waiting for her. Focusing feels a little easier now, so she glances around her in search of their target. The Man is immobile on the floor in front of the bar.

That's enough for her. They got the slime bag, and Oliver wouldn't leave if he hadn't gotten the information they needed from him. She pushes herself off the wall and takes the two steps to Oliver. The arm of his that isn't holding his bow slides around her waist, his hand locking into place above her hip. Her arms aren't long enough to reach all the way around his torso, but she presses herself into him and holds on tightly.

The lingering lightheadedness of the date rape drug intensifies as the floor drops away from her feet. The air whooshes out of Felicity's lungs and she tucks her nose into the planes of Oliver's chest to fend off the nasty rolling that's started in her stomach.

They land on a neighboring roof. Felicity feels like she did that time she and Digg had jumped out of a plane, and the last thing she wants to do right now is lose her dinner.

Oliver shifts beneath her. Instead of moving away, she squeezes her arms tighter and takes in a big breath. "Don't move yet," she commands.

Her stomach gives a particularly violent flip and Felicity grabs fistfuls of the leather at Oliver's back. She tries to focus her thoughts on the unmoving ground beneath her feet and parts her lips to suck in a calming breath. Don't you dare vomit, she tells herself.

Oliver bends the arm at her waist so that his forearm runs the length of her spine. His hand reaches easily to the base of her neck. He starts rubbing small circles against her skin, and then those turn into the firm press of his fingers against the muscles there. She is still clinging to his back and his arm is trapping her against him; neither of them makes any effort to move for several long moments.

Digg's voice over the radio breaks the silence. "Do you have her?"

They finally separate themselves from each other. Oliver reassures their partners that she's fine as Felicity rids herself of the ear bud. He takes it from her, removes his, and pockets both of them.

"Apparently we need a code word for 'I've just been roofied'," Felicity tries to joke. She lets out a shaky sigh and runs a hand over her brow. Luck is on her side tonight, but what if it hadn't been? What if she hadn't seen him slip that thing in her drink? She could be unconscious in a corner somewhere right now.

"We don't," Oliver counters, "Because this is never happening again."

She starts to argue, even if she doesn't exactly disagree with him, because that's what she does. "Oliver."

He glares fiercely at her. "Never."

Digg and Roy look almost as unhappy as Oliver does when they get back to the lair. Digg's face looks like a thundercloud when Felicity explains seeing The Man slip something into her drink; Roy doesn't know if he should apologize to her, or say something reassuring. Oliver just prowls around them like an angry, feral cat.

Felicity isn't paying attention when Oliver gives their teammates a look that wordlessly asks for privacy. She's too busy sinking into her computer chair and crossing her legs so that she can lean forward and slip off her heels.

Oliver appears in front of her with a bottle of water. She thanks him quietly and takes a long sip of the cool liquid. Her head and stomach have settled down, and the water tastes delicious.

"Did he hurt you?"

Felicity shakes her head. "Mostly he just pissed me off. And gave me the willies."

"You played a dangerous game in there, Felicity."

She drops her shoulders as she glares up at him and purses her lips. "Oliver."

"We should have found another way."

"There wasn't one. Look," Felicity says, standing and vaguely waving a hand at herself. "I'm fine. Barely a hair out of place."

"We were lucky. That man wanted …"

"I know what he wanted! I was there, Oliver, I know exactly what he wanted. But he didn't get it. He didn't get anything, he didn't even get my name."

"No, he got mine."

The words and the tone of Oliver's voice draw Felicity up short. "What?"

"You gave him my name. Or maybe I should say you gave yourself my name."

That hadn't been intentional. She'd reached into her mind for a name that wasn't her own, and Olivia had been the first one she found.

"I … don't know why I did that." She sighs. There's a headache building behind her eyes, and the exhaustion is starting to set in. She wants out of this dress and into pajamas. Then maybe she'll sleep for a week.

Oliver steps into her personal space. "I'm sorry," he apologizes quietly. His eyes are fierce, and electric. "Now is not the time for this. Let me get Digg to walk you to your car, or you can wait for me to change."

"I can make it to my car on my own, Oliver."

He nods. "I know, but I'd feel better if one of us went with you."

"Fine. Go change."

Oliver disappears quickly, and when he returns he's holding a zip-up sweater. "You were shivering."

"I think that's from the nerves," she explains as she slips into the hoodie. "It's not every day a girl gets roofied and remembers it."

Oliver's shoulders sag. Felicity knows it was the wrong thing to say, but she's still a little on edge. She puts a hand on his bicep and takes a step forward.

"Sorry, that wasn't funny. I just … you're right, I was lucky. And it wigs me out to think of what could have happened instead."

Felicity closes her eyes a second too long. She feels both of Oliver's large hands slide over the edge of her jaw and back into her hair, until he's cradling her head with his thumbs in front of her ears. When she opens her eyes to look at him again, he's dangerously close. There is little space between them, and yet Felicity doesn't feel crowded; she feels safe, as if her whole body is being cradled instead of just her face.

"I don't ever want you to be in that position again," Oliver half-whispers. His breath coasts over her lips and chin. "Please, Felicity."

He doesn't plead with her often. In fact, she's not sure if he's ever done it before this moment. His thumbs are brushing lightly over the skin in front of her ears, and his lips are so close, and they've been dancing around this for _so long_.

Just do it, a little voice whispers in her mind. Think like Nike, and just do it.

Felicity takes a slow step forward, until their chests are nearly brushing. Oliver's hands are still gentle against her face, but she feels the subtle way his fingers tighten in her hair. She can't reach his face, because he's ridiculously tall and she's not wearing heels anymore, so Felicity settles for running her hand up the length of his forearm and then wrapping her fingers around his wrist. She can feel his heartbeat through the pulse point there.

Felicity stares into Oliver's eyes, dark blue and magnetic, for the space of a breath. Then, rising onto the tips of her toes, she kisses him. The movement is exploratory, cautious - just the soft brush of her lips over his. A sensation like she's swallowed a lightning bolt sweeps out from her lips and down into her stomach. She does it again.

"Felicity." His lips shape her name against her lips.

She knows that she should panic. She knows that he let her kiss him, and that he hasn't kissed her back. His hands are still cradling her face and she can feel the press of his fingertips where they've curled into her hair, but he hasn't kissed her back.

The panic never comes. Felicity raises her eyes to his and reads what's written there as if she wrote the words herself.

"I feel fine, Oliver."

"You were just …"

"If you don't kiss me right now, Oliver, I will change the passcode on that door over there and …"

Oliver pulls her into him, or she presses herself against him; either way, Felicity is suddenly being kissed like … well, she's not sure, because she's never been kissed like this before. There's passion, and intensity, and something else she chooses not to name yet.

Beneath all of it – the desire and the earnestness – there is Oliver's trademark gentleness. Felicity smiles, her lips pulling up beneath his, because she finally understands. When Oliver pulls away from her moments later he looks slightly confused, but there's a hint of a smile on his lips as well.

The way he's looking at her gives her butterflies.

Felicity sweeps her eyes over his face. Oliver is not gentle with her because he thinks that she can't handle anything else; he's gentle with her because that's just who he is, and who they are together. In fact, it's really not gentleness at all – she's been wrong all this time in thinking that it is.

It's tenderness.


	2. The Reluctant Queen

_**Author's Note: Two chapters in one day?! What?! Let me just say that these are un-beta'd and I'm in the middle of end of semester projects, so I'm sorry about any mistakes. I have edited a few times, but I always seem to miss a few. **_

_**Chapter Two: The Reluctant Queen**_

_**Spoilers: None. **_

_**Summary: This one is a bit of an AU. Oliver is an active Captain in the Bratva by day, and the vigilante by night. Felicity is the daughter of a rival mafia boss who wants to save her mother. (I realize that there are a few of these, but this idea will not leave me alone).**_

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><p><span><em><strong>The Reluctant Queen<strong>_

The mansion is dark and silent as Oliver moves through the rooms. He knows that despite appearances, he is not the only one awake in the Queen mansion. There are security patrols in and around the building, led by none other than Oliver's personal bodyguard and friend, John Diggle. He thinks that Thea must be asleep because he hasn't seen her since he stepped in the door. Not that he expects her to be awake; it's nearly two o'clock in the morning.

He's passing the living room when the flicker of lights catches his attention. Oliver stops mid-stride and then backtracks; there is no sound, but a movie menu is repeating on the flat screen television on the wall. He's tall enough to see over the back of the couch in front of him: there's a woman curled up on the cushions, an arm tucked beneath a pillow and legs half pulled up into her chest. She's sound asleep.

Oliver stuffs his hands into his pockets and leans a shoulder against the doorframe. Everything about the situation feels … strange. His suit jacket is hanging off the back of a chair in the kitchen and he's already removed his tie and undone the top few buttons of his white dress shirt. The scene feels like one straight out of a movie: the lead man comes home from a hard day of work to find that his wife has fallen asleep waiting for him. Except there is no movie strange enough to encompass this situation, because Oliver Queen is a high ranking Captain in the Russian mafia by day, and a masked vigilante trying to save his city by night. The woman asleep on the couch in front of him is indeed his wife – but he knows next to nothing about her.

In fact, they have been married for three months and Felicity Smoak – Felicity Queen is still just as much of a stranger to him as she was the day she strolled into his office and half-begged, half-black mailed him into marrying her.

Oliver wishes he'd had the forethought to take a picture of Digg's face at that moment. The bodyguard has a fantastic poker face, and even he had been unable to hide his surprised amusement. Of course, that amusement hadn't stopped John from repeatedly telling Oliver that he couldn't possibly go along with this woman's plan because – well, for a lot of reasons.

Oliver probably should have taken a picture of John's face the moment he had agreed to Felicity Smoak's plan, for that matter. His bodyguard had been decidedly less amused then.

In the last few weeks Oliver hasn't failed to notice that his bodyguard's attitude toward her has undergone a complete change. John seems very fond of Felicity now. In fact, everyone seems fond of Felicity, except him. Well, he's not un-fond of her – he just doesn't know her.

What a backward situation this is, he thinks as he watches her sleep.

Oliver knows that, logically, he never should have agreed to marry this woman. She's the daughter of a rival mafia boss and had come to him with a folder full of enough information on his dealings for the Bratva to put him in prison for the rest of his life (though she seems to know nothing about his vigilante persona). That first meeting had been … interesting; Felicity's natural sweetness had been easily discernible despite her blackmail attempt. She'd been so nervous, and yet so firm as she told him that she needed his protection. My father is evil, she'd said, and I have to get my mother away from him.

Those words had stood out to Oliver more than anything else. Felicity Smoak was trying to save her mother as much as herself. He remembers thinking that this was a woman who had been backed into a corner and was fighting desperately to find a way out of it. She was clearly frightened, and tired, and on the verge of giving up. He'd asked her how she knew that he was any better than her father – that he wasn't just as evil as that man – and she'd immediately confessed that she didn't.

The only things that Oliver knows about his wife are these: that everyone seems to love her; that she loves her mother so much that she'd offered herself up like a prize to be won in exchange for her safety; that she must love color, because she surrounds herself with it; and now, he knows that when she sleeps she looks impossibly young.

John had told him that he was crazy, but something deep in his chest told Oliver that he'd been right to offer this woman his protection. He can protect her – even if he's not entirely certain what exactly he's protecting her from.

Oliver pushes away from the doorframe and crosses quietly over to the couch. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and uses one to gently shake Felicity's shoulder.

"Hey," he murmurs. "Felicity, wake up."

She grumbles a little as she opens tired eyes and readjusts her glasses. "Oliver?"

Felicity sits up suddenly, still unaccustomed to waking up in her new surroundings. Well, her new home, but she just can't make herself even think those words. Strictly speaking, this mansion is her home now and the unfairly handsome man standing in front of her is her husband, but none of that is actually true. She is alone in unfamiliar waters.

People who are masters of deception surround Oliver; every one of them can lie, straight faced, about anything, at the drop of a hat. Felicity doesn't have that skill. He sees the exact moment that she realizes where she is, because she deflates and looks utterly lost. No matter how noble her reasons or pure her intentions, this must be so difficult for her.

Not for the first time, Oliver admires Felicity's resolve.

Oliver sits down next to her. He's careful to leave enough room between them so that she won't feel crowded by his much larger frame.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," he says.

"It's fine," Felicity answers. She sighs and runs a hand over her hair. "I must have fallen asleep during the movie."

"What was it?"

"The new Star Trek."

"We own that?"

He's being sincere, but it brings a small smile to her face. "Yeah, I was surprised too. I wouldn't have pegged you for the sci-fi type."

"I've never seen it," he admits.

"Maybe Thea, then." She takes in his appearance, the lack of jacket and triangle of skin visible at his throat. Oliver is remarkably handsome. Felicity wonders how many women have fallen prey to those good looks, and then realizes that she doesn't care. They are married on paper only. "Did you just get ho-back?"

"Ho-back?" Oliver repeats dryly.

Felicity sighs and takes off her glasses. "I was going to ask if you just got home, but it just felt so strange because this isn't home – I mean, it isn't my home, so I changed my mind at the last second and it just." She waves a hand through the air. "It came out wrong."

"Yes. I got home about half an hour ago."

Oliver notices that Felicity doesn't ask him how late it is, or what he was doing out at such an hour. His wife – that will probably be weird until the moment she gives him the divorce she'd promised him after the cops had dealt with her father – is a beautiful woman, but she seems so tired. He recognizes it as the same exhaustion he'd often felt on the island – that bone weariness that comes with living in constant fear.

He doesn't know why, but he wants to comfort her. He wants to take that burden off of her shoulders for just a second. "I think I know how to get your mother out here."

Felicity perks up instantly. Her shoulders straighten and she turns large, bright eyes on him. "Here?" she repeats. "You're going to bring her here?"

Oliver knows that he can be a hard man, and he has done things that still haunt his dreams, but he is not cruel. The child like hope in Felicity's face pains him. Someone – probably her father – has been cruel to this woman.

"Where did you think she would go?" he queries.

"I don't know. I said that you had to keep us safe, but I didn't think to say anything about keeping us together. You could have sent her to Dubai for all I knew."

"I'm going to bring her here," Oliver tells her, but it sounds like a promise. "Even if I have to go get her myself." He is surprised to realize that he means it.

Felicity feels that familiar ball of fear in the pit of her stomach tighten in on itself. She hadn't run from her father to start a turf war between the Irish and Russian mafias, but now she wonders if that's what's about to happen. She knows that it's not uncommon for mafias to secure ties by marriage, but that's not the same thing as what she did. No, Felicity has basically defected, and her father must be irate.

"I haven't forgotten about your mother, Felicity. I gave you my word, and I keep my word."

She's so relieved that she acts on instinct. Felicity practically jumps across the space between them and throws her arms around his neck. This crazy plan of hers just might work, and her mom will be safe and here with her, and she has just enough left in her to dare to hope.

Oliver isn't sure how to respond to the impromptu hug. This is the first time he's really even touched Felicity and she's hugging him tightly. After a few seconds, he wraps one arm around her back and returns the hug.

When Felicity pulls back there are tears in her eyes.

"It's late," he says finally. "I'm sure your bed is more comfortable than the couch."

So he follows Felicity up the stairs and wishes her a quiet good night in the hall outside of their rooms. Hers is right next to his and there's an adjoining door between them that has never been opened.

"Oliver?"

He turns his head to look at her. She's half in and half out of the doorway, and she's smiling at him.

Felicity has a beautiful smile.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

She disappears into her room before he can answer. Oliver blinks at the empty space where she'd been standing and then feels a corner of his mouth tug upwards. It's the first time he's smiled all day.

He's climbing in to bed when he hears the metallic _snick_ of a lock. Surprised, he glances at the door that separates his room from Felicity's.

That night is the first time since she's lived there that Felicity has unlocked the door.


	3. The Swiss Family Vigilante

_**Author's Note: For those of you who asked, I will be making chapter two (The Reluctant Queen) into my next multi-chapter fic as soon as I'm done with The Light That Guides. I can only handle so many projects at once. =) Thank you to everyone who has read/reviewed/favorited this so far. You guys rock!**_

_**Chapter Three: The Swiss Family Vigilante.**_

_**Spoilers: None. Takes place sometime after season three.**_

_**Summary: MarySophiaSpurce (on fan fiction dot net) prompted: in/after a mission the Arrow rescues a baby girl and the team has to take care of her while searching for her parents. I tweaked it a little bit, but I hope you like it (and your English is fine. Also, I LOVE Italy!). This ended up being pure fluff. **_

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><p><strong><em><span>The Swiss Family Vigilante<span>_**

Felicity hears the team before she sees them. Unsurprisingly, Thea and Oliver are arguing.

"You should have asked me first, Speedy."

"You would have said no, Ollie!"

"And yet you did it anyway!"

"It was the right thing to do and you know it. Should I have just left her there? It's freezing outside!"

Felicity spins her chair around, fully prepared to break up one of the sibling spats that are not uncommon these days. Instead, her words die on her lips and her eyes widen. Thea is right on Oliver's heels, and Felicity has to be imagining things, because it looks like the younger Queen is holding a baby.

Which is just crazy, really.

Oliver goes straight to the glass case that holds his arrows and deposits his bow. Thea follows him, still holding the baby-that-can't-possibly-be-a-baby while Digg and Roy fan out behind them to drop off their own weapons. Felicity makes eye contact with Digg, who gives her that look he uses to hide his laughter. When she looks at Roy, he shakes his head as if to say, "Oh no, I want no part of this".

Oliver is still in his green leathers, but his hood is pushed back and his eye mask has been removed. Felicity can't tell if he's more annoyed, or exasperated. He's headed straight for her.

"Uh, Thea?" Felicity tries to keep her voice casual as she gets to her feet. "Is that … are you holding a baby? I mean, that's what it looks like, but how can it be a baby, right? You were definitely baby-less when you left, and you weren't gone _that_ long."

"Oh, it's a baby all right," Oliver grumbles, and, yep, he's definitely annoyed.

Thea glares at her brother and then brings the baby-that-is-really-a-baby over to her. Now that she's close enough, Felicity can see that the baby is a little girl. She has huge brown eyes that are watching Thea curiously and a purple hat pulled down around her ears. Just beneath the edge of the hat Felicity can see tiny golden earrings.

"I found her in the alley," Thea explains indignantly. "Can you believe that? I couldn't just leave her out there, although apparently that's what Ollie thinks I should have done."

"I think what you should have done was take her to the police station," Oliver grouses from Felicity's other side. "Not bring her down here."

"She's not even a year old, Ollie, who's she gonna tell?"

Digg had said those same words almost a year ago when Oliver had dragged his heels about letting him bring baby Sara down to the lair. Felicity glances at Digg, who isn't even trying to hide his grin anymore, and then at a clearly displeased Oliver. She can't help it – she starts to laugh. She ignores the glare Oliver sends her way.

"Do you think she was abandoned?" Thea asks.

Felicity gives the little girl another cursory glance. She's wrapped in a plush blanket – purple with blue polka dots – and she looks to be wearing a heavy outfit beneath that. The purple hat on her head looks hand crocheted.

"No," Felicity answers. "She looks well taken care of, healthy and happy. Has she been crying?"

"Not since Thea picked her up," Roy says as he and Digg join them.

"Then why was she in the alley? We have to see if we can find out who she is and get her home."

Thea is looking right at Felicity, who opens her mouth to respond and realizes that she doesn't know what to say.

"Oh, I …"

"C'mon, 'City," Thea pleads. "Do that magic computer hacker thing you do and help me get this little princess home."

"It's not magic," Felicity automatically corrects.

Simultaneously, Oliver says, "'City?"

Thea looks over at her brother with a cheeky grin. "Yeah, ya know, as in 'you have failed this city'. It's a joke, Ollie, don't give me that look."

Diggle is laughing and Roy is smirking, but Felicity does her best to keep her face impassive. Thea has only been a part of Team Arrow for a few weeks and Oliver is still having a bit of a hard time adjusting to the idea that his sister not only knows of his Arrow persona, but that she's now an active part of his crusade. Of course, Thea isn't exactly making it easy – she's been hell bent on giving her brother a hard time since she found out.

Felicity turns her attention back to Thea. "Is there a name sewn into her hat?"

"Um -." Thea has been content to hold the little girl up until then. Her expression quickly falls to one of muted panic as she gingerly attempts to move the baby in a way that will allow her get a better look at the hat.

"Here," Felicity says, laughing as she takes the baby from Thea. She's babysat little Sara enough by now to be perfectly comfortable with a baby in her arms, so she cradles the little girl's head and neck in one hand and holds her against her shoulder.

"Initials," Oliver tells her. "A.T."

"Too bad they're not E.T.," Thea quips. Then, in response to Digg and Oliver's questioning looks, "You know, E.T. phone home? God, doesn't anyone down here have a sense of humor?"

Oliver makes that little exasperated sound at the back of his throat. Felicity knows that sound always comes before some kind of argument, so she reaches out with the arm that isn't holding the baby's head and squeezes his forearm. When he looks at her, she shucks her chin slightly at the baby.

"I need both hands for the keyboard," she explains.

Oliver sighs but he lets it go. Felicity shifts the baby into his waiting arms effortlessly and then plops back into her computer chair.

"Alright, little one, let's see if we can figure out who you are," Felicity murmurs as she starts typing.

Neither Oliver nor Felicity catches the look that Thea gives them, or the one that she shares with Digg and Roy as they move away to change.

Oliver watches Felicity work her technological magic. When the baby starts to coo in his ear, he pulls her far enough away from his shoulder to smile at her. "Wanna give us a clue?" he asks.

The baby coos again and lifts a tiny fist to wave through the air. Oliver only realizes that Felicity is watching him when she laughs.

"E.T. phone home," she says, and laughs again.

Oliver doesn't bother to hide his smile from her. He gave up on that a long time ago.

"Are those searches running?" he asks.

Felicity nods. "Yeah, searching for missing persons reports."

"Good. Come here."

He waits for her to stand and then slips a free arm around her waist and pulls her in for a kiss. The baby reaches out and slaps her hand against Felicity's cheek and leaves it there. Oliver grins as she huffs a breathy chuckle against his lips.

"Oh, am I in your way, little one?" Felicity teases, covering the small hand with her own. It's a little cold, but not freezing, so she doesn't think she was in that alley too long.

Oliver tightens his arm around Felicity's waist and presses a kiss against her temple, reveling in the knowledge that he can do these things now.

"Oh good, you've stopped being such a bear," Thea pipes up from behind them.

The other woman appears next to them, her black leather vigilante outfit replaced by a fashionable sweater and jeans. She smiles at all of them and then scrunches her nose at the baby, who gives her a toothless grin.

"Are all babies this good natured?"

"Hell no," Digg answers. He steps into the space next to Thea.

Felicity's computer pings. She half turns in Oliver's embrace to look at it but the angle is all wrong, so she has to step away to actually read what it says.

"Audra Thomas, nine months," she announces. "Her mother was attacked in the Glades a few hours ago and taken to Starling General. Her father has offered a reward for his daughter's safe return."

"Hear that, Audra?" Thea says sweetly, rubbing her finger down the little girl's soft cheek. "We found your family. What do you say, princess? Wanna go home?"

"How are we going to get her there?" Roy questions. "It's not like Oliver can just hop between rooftops with a baby in his arms."

"We'll drive," Felicity answers. "Digg has a car seat in his car."

"Last time I checked, that's Sara's, and she's a lot bigger than nine months."

"True, but we'll adjust it as best we can and drive slow. It's better than no car seat," Felicity replies.

Digg smiles and shakes his head. "I'll go see what I can do about the car seat," he tells them before disappearing.

"Well, it was nice to meet you, E.T.," Roy tells the little girl. He smirks when Oliver glares at him.

Thea grins. "I'm gonna head out. See you later."

She doesn't bother to ask her brother if he'll be home later.

Felicity slips into her pea coat and grabs her phone and purse before taking Audra from Oliver.

"You made for an interesting night, Audra," she stage whispers to the baby. Audra giggles and latches a hand on to one of Felicity's feather earrings.

Oliver expertly peels the little hand away from the piece of jewelry. Sara used to do the same thing when she was little.

Felicity smiles gratefully at him. "You coming over tonight?"

"Is that okay?"

She leans up and waits the split second it takes him to lean down and meet her lips in a kiss. "I expect pizza when I get home," she answers.

Oliver feels impossibly light and full as he watches Felicity head for the stairs with an arm full of baby. She's carrying on a conversation with little Audra as if she's another adult.

"When your daddy asks, just tell him that you were taken in by the Swiss Family Vigilante," Felicity says. Then, "You're too young to know, but that's a play on words. I used to watch this old show with my mom, the Swiss Family Robinson …"

Oliver is beaming as Felicity's voice fades away.

He can't wait to go home.


	4. I don't dance

_**Author's Note: This obviously won't happen on the show, which is why I wrote it. The season has barely started and the angst train is wearing me out. So I wrote this! Anyway, a guest reviewer asked me to write something based on the song Lullabies by Ingrid Michaelson. The only song by her that I could find was Morning Lullabies - if you're reading this, whoever you are, let me know if that's the song you were talking about and I'd be happy to write something for it. Hope you guys enjoy this one!**_

_**Spoilers: None. Set sometime in future season 3.**_

_**Summary: Felicity finds Oliver alone in the club on Christmas Eve.**_

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><p><span><em><strong>I don't<strong>** dance**_

_(I'd do anything with you, anywhere)_

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><p>The thing about intimacy is that it will make itself known. Felicity is a people watcher – an observer – and she learned that lesson years ago. Las Vegas is a playground for millions of people, a respite and a vacation and a world of its own that manages to feel insulated from the larger, more real one. She considers it amazing how some people behave when they are there. The huge crowds allow for an anonymity that is hard to find anywhere else, and Felicity had used that to her advantage. She'd spent countless hours watching people come and go, and the one thing that had always struck her – still does, actually – is how the one thing that the crowds can never hide is intimacy.<p>

She doesn't mean sexual intimacy, though there is definitely plenty of that in Vegas. No, the kind of intimacy that can pass silently from one person to another in a look, or a gesture; that moment where, if she is paying attention, she can actually pinpoint when a person's world narrows down to just themselves and their partner. Sometimes it's sexual – Felicity knows what chemistry and lust look like – but often it's deeper than that. It's the intimacy that comes with comfort, and trust, and something … shared.

Felicity loves catching those moments between strangers. She doesn't need to know who they are to understand that, if there really is magic in the world, it exists in those moments – between, and for, those people. For Felicity, that's what it means for two people to "make magic happen".

(The problem is that what looks like magic from the outside undeniably feels like work on the inside, so the splendor of it goes unappreciated by its creators. The bystander always appreciates a finished piece of art; the artist can never seem to see past the individual brush strokes).

Two weeks after she puts the kibosh on her thing with Ray – because it was a thing, a few dates and some rather chaste kisses do not a relationship make – Felicity finds herself driving to the lair. It's Christmas Eve and, while she doesn't celebrate the holiday, she feels an intense urge to get out of her house. She considers going to her office at Queen Consolidated right up until she finds herself three blocks from Verdant. Digg is with Lyla and baby Sara; she honestly has no idea where Roy is; and now that Thea is back in Starling and sharing her penthouse with Oliver, he'll be there with her. Which is perfect, because Felicity doesn't think she's in the mood for company.

What she needs is some quiet reflection. Sitting on her couch and flipping idly through television channels hadn't helped, so she'd just grabbed up her stuff and started driving. Felicity isn't surprised to find herself walking toward the club, not really. Oliver has spent enough time brooding within the walls of the basement that they must be infused with it by now. Maybe she can draw some of that serious introspection out for herself.

She made sure to stuff the boys' Christmas presents in her purse before she left her house. She may not observe the holiday, but they do, and she wanted to get them something. (Baby Sara's gift is tucked in with Digg and Lyla's).

Felicity lets herself in to the club and her steps falter when she realizes that the air is full of soft music. She really shouldn't be surprised, but she is, because it's Christmas Eve.

Oliver is sitting on the last few stairs. He has one elbow braced on his knee, his hand covering the back of his neck, and he's staring down at something held in his other hand.

Felicity doesn't say anything, and he doesn't look up. She crosses the room quietly – she chose to slip into her panda flats as she was leaving – and seats herself gingerly next to him. She's not sure if he wants the company but she has to try anyway.

Oliver doesn't look at her. Instead, he holds the object in his hand away from his knees and angles it toward her, so that she can see it: it's an old family picture. She knows that it was taken before the island.

They sit quietly for a while and the only sounds are their breathing and the soft strains of music coming from the sound system. It's not Christmas music.

"Where's Thea?" Felicity finally asks.

"She asked Roy to stop by. They needed some space."

Felicity props her chin in her hand and turns her head to look at him. This has been a long and trying year for all of them, and she is truly thankful that they've made it here, to the end of December, at all. Diggle's family has gained one soul, Oliver's has lost one, and their collective family has lost one; this is not the way she hoped the year would end. Minus baby Sara – she loves that little girl.

Oliver finally turns his head to look at her over the back of his forearm. "What are you doing here?"

Felicity shrugs noncommittally. "I don't know." She doesn't want to contemplate if a part of her somehow knew that Oliver would be here, and subconsciously sought him out.

"She knew."

The words catch her off guard.

"My mom, she knew that I was the Arrow. Did I ever tell you that?"

Felicity shakes her head even though he's looking at the picture again and not her.

"She said she was proud of me. She knew who I was – she knew that I had killed people – and she still said she was proud of me."

She can handle so many things, but the way that Oliver is looking at that picture, and sitting alone on the stairs in an empty nightclub – well, that's just too much. Felicity hates to see anyone in pain, but it strikes a particular chord with her when it's Oliver. She angles her knees a little and bumps the one closest to him into his leg.

"I know it's not the same, but I'm proud of you. And so is Digg. That's worth something, right?"

Oliver fixes those intense blue eyes on her face. They are sitting close to one another, but she could be on the opposite side of the room and his gaze would have the same weight.

"More than something," he says quietly.

The electric charge that seems to exist only in the spaces between their bodies is starting to crackle when Oliver suddenly produces his wallet, tucks the old picture into one of the folds, and then slips it back into his pocket as he stands. Felicity doesn't have time to wonder what he's doing, because he's barely gained his feet before he's holding a hand out to her.

"Dance with me." Oliver's voice is low and he's giving her that look he only gets when he thinks she isn't looking.

(Except that sometimes she is looking, and it always takes her breath away).

It's Christmas Eve and the club is empty and she wants to help him carry the weight that always seems to drag at his shoulders, so Felicity ignores the little voice that tells her this is a bad idea and slips her hand into his. He tugs her easily to her feet and leads her farther out onto the empty dance floor.

Felicity's heart stutters somewhat painfully when Oliver pulls her against his chest and slides an arm around her waist. There are no steps to their dance; he starts to sway, turning them in a slow circle, and she follows. This is easy, being with him like this. No one is around to interrupt them, or make demands, or even witness the moment. It's just them, together on an empty dance floor and suspended in the moment between an end and a beginning.

(She's too busy looking at the brush strokes to realize that there's a painting).

Oliver tightens the arm that's around her waist, pressing her more tightly to his chest. She doesn't protest, so he tips his cheek ever so slightly until it comes to rest against her hair. He needs this moment. He needs all of these moments, all of her and them and the things they create together, but he can't have them. He kissed those chances goodbye in a hospital hallway – literally. So he'll take this one stolen moment and hold it tightly to him as though it's his only candle in a hurricane, and he'll find a way to make it last him until he can steal another one, or learn to live in the storm.

"I thought you didn't like dancing?" Felicity's voice is a whisper against his throat.

"I don't." His breath ghosts over the shell of her ear.

"Then why are we doing it?"

"Because you're my exception, Felicity. I'll do anything with you." Oliver knows that he shouldn't say it, because she's made it perfectly clear that she doesn't want to him say things like that. But it's true, and he wants her to know how he feels, without a doubt. So he tightens his hold on her for the span of a breath, because he knows that she's about to run and he wants just one more second. "For you," he adds.

Oliver won't hold her against her will, so he releases the tension in his arms and stops swaying in anticipation of her departure. He pulls his cheek away from her hair and waits.

Nothing happens. Felicity isn't pressed to his chest as tightly as she was a minute ago, but she's still standing in the circle of his arms. That's an improvement, at least. She looks unsure, and conflicted, and the words just sort of dance their way off the end of his tongue and into the air.

"You told me that life is precious, and you were right."

"I usually am."

The jest is quiet, delivered from behind a fledgling smile, and Oliver's breath escapes him in a puff of air. Felicity's smile gets a little wider and an answering smile is pulled from him.

"You usually are," he agrees. He studies her face for a second because, damn, he _really_ loves this woman. Softly he begins again, "This side of me, the side that isn't the Arrow, is … scary. I told you once that I was afraid of what would happen if I let myself be Oliver Queen. That's still true. The only thing that doesn't change on either side of that line – either side of my life – is that I love you."

Felicity tenses in his arm and this is it, she's going to run, and he won't hold her against her will but this time he's going to stop her, or chase after her, or just blurt out all the words that she needs to hear before she disappears.

"Felicity …"

The only running Felicity does is metaphorical, and it's straight at him instead of away. Her fingers curl around his biceps to pull him down, or pull her up, and then she's kissing him. A momentary pressure of lips against lips and then it registers with Oliver what's happening, and the arm banded around her waist tightens as his other hand slides along her jawline and into her hair.

They kiss with tender abandon. He's a little desperate because this could turn out to be another stolen moment and she might disappear as soon as they pull away; she's overwhelmed by the force of her reaction and the earnestness of his lips, so much like their only other kiss (and yet so much more).

They stay that way for some minutes. Even when they stop kissing their lips are brushing, the faintest caress of skin over skin, and the air between them is shared. Felicity finally opens her eyes to see that Oliver has not done so. He's holding her tightly but carefully; he's clinging to her, and his eyes are closed.

"Don't go," he whispers. His lips drag against hers as they form the words.

Felicity's heart clenches. He looks so vulnerable like this, so sad, and part of that is her fault. She doesn't regret walking away from him in the summer, or anything that happened with Ray, but she regrets that she hurt him.

She was afraid – is afraid, that he'll always be leaving her (or waiting to leave her). Waiting to die, waiting to fail, waiting to push her away … she is afraid of being abandoned, and she understands now that he shares that fear.

He's still cupping her cheek so she reaches up to cover his hand with her own.

"Look at me," she commands. When he does, she continues. "I'm right here, Oliver. I've always been here. With you."

Oliver doesn't respond. He knows that, technically, she never left – but his heart still aches with the memory of all the things he's lost over the months, all the times she turned away from any indication of his feelings for her, and every part of her was still here except the one he so desperately wanted – the part that was with him. Felicity never left, but she hasn't been here either.

She was right to walk away from him, but the echo of her footsteps still hurt.

And he needed that pain then, but he doesn't now, so he does his best to let it go.

"You're right," he says finally. "You've always been here. I just needed time to catch up."

Felicity smiles, and Oliver kisses her again. He wonders if smiles have flavor, if they can be tasted, and maybe if she'll let him he'll spend the rest of his life trying to discover the answer.

"I'm gonna have beard burn," she teases.

"Come home with me," he says.

She pulls back a little and fixes wide eyes on him.

"Spend Christmas with me, Felicity."

"Okay," Felicity agrees easily. Then, "Oh! Do you think Roy will still be with Thea? I was just going to leave his gift here, but I guess I can just give it to him in person now."

Oliver is smiling. She loves it when he does that, and loves it even more when he does it because of her.

"I have a good feeling he'll still be there."

The muscles beneath Felicity's hands and against her chest start to shift. Oliver is about to turn and step away from her, no doubt to turn off the music and lights so that they can leave, but she stops him with a gentle pressure. All of the things that he has told her tonight, the truths that he has been so free and generous with, and he has not asked her for a single one.

For the only one.

"Say it again," she murmurs when he turns confused eyes on her.

"What?" he queries.

"Say it again."

Oliver has to cast back through the last few minutes to figure out what it is she's asking. When he does, he smiles that intimate smile that he saves for her. His thumb caresses the skin of her cheek.

"I love you, Felicity."

There are tears in her eyes but her smile is dazzling. "I love you too, Oliver."

They don't let go of each other for the rest of the night.


	5. A Peaceful Interlude

_**Author's Note: this one is short, and pure fluff. It's a continuation of the last chapter, I Don't Dance. **_

_**Spoilers: None.**_

_**Summary: starlingkingandqueen asked after the last chapter: "Is there any way you could possibly have a follow-up to this, where Oliver, Felicity, Thea and Roy bring Christmas in, in a quiet and meaningful way, but with the love all around?" Hope you like it!**_

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><p><span><strong>A Peaceful Interlude<strong>

Felicity's arm is asleep. The sensation is uncomfortable, but she relishes it anyway and smiles into the silence of the room. Her arm is only asleep because it is pinned under Oliver's neck and his head is pillowed on her chest, and all in all she thinks that's a win.

Her chin is tucked against the crown of his head and his hair tickles when she tries to adjust. Felicity's smile widens. In an effort to bring sensation back to her arm, she bends it up and begins to trace lazy patterns against his back under the blanket. They probably look a little ridiculous – she's certain that Oliver's feet are dangling over the bottom edge of the bed – and she wishes that she could see them from a different perspective. Oliver is some nine inches taller than her and twice as wide, but he's the one with his head on her chest and an arm tossed comfortably around her waist.

Felicity hasn't woken up this happy in a long, long time.

She is perhaps too happy (and touched) to know that Oliver – intimidating, I-can-incapacitate-a-man-with-one-hand Oliver – is actually a hopeless cuddle bug. He'd barely let go of her all night last night; the moment they'd agreed to sleep in the same bed, Oliver had curled around her in a way that simultaneously warmed and broke her heart.

Still does, actually, because he hasn't moved.

Eventually Felicity starts to hum quietly. She can hear someone moving around downstairs – probably Thea – and subconsciously creates her own tune to the sound of the movements.

"Are you singing me a lullaby?"

Felicity smiles again. Seriously, is that all she's going to do now?

"No. But, if it works for you, go with it."

Oliver's laughter is muted thunder and vibrations along her body.

Felicity traces a crude Christmas tree against his back. "Merry Christmas, Oliver."

He lifts his head off of her chest and onto the pillow next to hers, shimmying up the bed far enough to bring them eye-to-eye.

"Do I … is it insensitive of me to say it back?"

"I don't think so."

Oliver shifts closer and presses a long, sweet kiss to her lips. "Merry Christmas, Felicity."

A laugh drifts in underneath the bedroom door. It's feminine, and genuine, and she can see the way it relaxes Oliver to hear it. Thea sounds happy. Felicity is immensely thankful that the younger Queen has returned to Starling, because her presence is so important to her brother.

"I smell coffee," Felicity says suddenly. "Should we go help them drink it?"

Oliver smiles. He starts to withdraw the arm that's draped over her stomach, but stops to splay his hand over her belly. He flexes his fingers just enough to tickle and then kisses her when she tries to protest.

Felicity adds playfulness to the list of things she didn't expect to find in a relationship with Oliver. It's her next favorite thing to cuddling (at least until she finds something else to be delighted with).

She had insisted on going by her house last night before returning to Thea's. Amongst her pajamas and clothes for the day she'd thrown in her toothbrush and a few other toiletry items. After they have extricated themselves from each other enough to get out of bed, Felicity pads over to the gym bag that holds her stuff and retrieves her toothbrush.

Oliver shows her down the hall to the bathroom and they take turns attending their morning ablutions before heading downstairs. Outside the confines of Oliver's room they can hear murmured conversation, Thea's lighter voice occasionally undercut by Roy's deeper one.

"Merry Christmas," Oliver tells them both warmly, dropping a kiss into Thea's hair as he passes.

"Merry Christmas," Thea and Roy chorus together.

"There's coffee," Thea informs them, waving to the kitchen behind her.

"Thank you," Felicity answers. "And Merry Christmas."

Oliver motions for her to have a seat, so she clambers on to one of the empty bar stools. There's a decent sized kitchen table, but Thea and Roy are seated at the bar, so she sits there.

Thea glances around Roy to meet Felicity's gaze. "I was just saying how it doesn't feel like Christmas. Mom …"

The word comes out too thick and her words fall away. Thea isn't crying, but she's obviously affected enough that she can't continue.

"Would be happy that we're together," Oliver finishes, leaning across the counter to set a cup of coffee down in front of Felicity. He squeezes his sister's hand.

Thea clears her throat and smiles at her brother. "Yeah, she would. Though she'd probably be mad at us for not having a tree."

"Next year."

"Ollie?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you. For coming to get me."

He smiles at his sister, and it's never been more clear to Felicity how much he adores her. "Anything for you, Speedy."

Oliver picks up his cup of coffee and moves around the counter. Felicity thinks that he's going to sit down next to her, but instead he holds his hand out for her. When she takes it he applies the slightest pressure, so she slides carefully off of the bar stool and has just enough time to grab her coffee mug before he leads her over to the couch. He tucks himself against one of the arms and drapes his arm over the back of the couch. Felicity settles in against him and that arm drops down to settle around her shoulders.

Roy and Thea join them less than a minute later. Thea stops before she actually sits down and moves to the television instead.

"How about 'It Happened One Night'?"

"I like that one," Oliver answers.

Also on the list of things Felicity is just learning about Oliver: he's a fan of Clark Gable.

Felicity smiles for the billionth time since waking up and snuggles deeper into Oliver's side. She takes a sip of coffee – he made it perfectly – and sighs contentedly.

"It's snowing," Roy says out of nowhere.

They all turn their heads to look out the wall of windows. Sure enough, the gray sky is sprinkling large white flakes over the city.

They are sitting close enough that Felicity hears Roy speak again, even though it's clear he's speaking only to Thea. "Looks like you get your white Christmas after all."

Oliver's arm tightens around Felicity and his mouth presses a kiss against her temple.

"I love you," he whispers.

Felicity's heart expands and cracks, but only love and light pour through the fissures. She turns to look at him and finds him unguarded – vulnerable, and open, and beautiful.

"I love you, too."

She stretches up to kiss him. They taste like coffee and just a hint of toothpaste.

"Don't make me send you guys back to your room, Ollie."

Thea tosses a throw pillow at them. Oliver catches it in mid-air and chucks it back at her, but his sister just laughs and leans over so that it sails right past her.

He doesn't stop kissing Felicity.


	6. The Inadvertent War

_**Author's Note: this one is short and I wrote it because I needed something not painful to cope with the angst fest episodes we've been getting. It's just light, silly fun.**_

_**Spoilers: None.**_

_**Summary: Felicity finds a way to break the ice.**_

* * *

><p><span><strong>The Inadvertent War<strong>

* * *

><p>It starts as a joke.<p>

Things in the Arrow cave have been tense lately and Felicity is sick of feeling like her only choices are to wade through the tension or walk on eggshells. Unfortunately, she's not sure how to fix the situation.

The idea comes to her late one night, when she's alone in the lair and feeling particularly down. Felicity drags her eyes from the computer monitors and sees Roy's red hoodie hanging off of the mannequin where his leather vigilante suit hangs. She's mentioned more than once that it's a little weird that he apparently only ones that one sweater. Roy ignores those remarks.

Anyway, she's looking at the stretch of red cloth and trying to think of ways to break the ice that's crept in amongst them when the idea occurs to her.

Felicity sweeps off of her chair and snatches up the sweater. The boys will be out for a while longer, so she should have plenty of time. She bursts into the empty club and goes straight to the large sink behind the bar. The sweater gets plunged under the coldest water the faucet can provide; she doesn't wring out the excess, just folds it as tightly as she can and shoves it in the walk-in freezer.

(She learned this particular trick in college. It doesn't always have the intended effect – she has personally pissed off a handful of people like this – but she's willing to try anything at this point.)

Felicity hums excitedly to herself as she makes her way downstairs again. She can't wait to see how Roy reacts.

She absolutely does _not_ do a little skip on the way to her workstation.

To be fair – Roy has to be able to actually find the hoodie for this to work – Felicity types out a quick clue: _it's freezing in here!_

She tapes the paper to the featureless face of the mannequin and settles in to wait.

Felicity doesn't forget about the sweater, exactly, but by the time the guys return it has moved to the back of her mind.

Right up until she hears Roy's loud, "What the hell?"

Felicity purses her lips to rein in the smile that wants to break free. She doesn't answer him and she doesn't look away from her computers.

"What does that mean?" Digg asks, reading the note over Roy's shoulder.

"I have no idea. Felicity?"

"Hmm?"

"What did you do with my hoodie?"

She spins in her chair to face him. Her poker face sucks, but she does her best to look perfectly innocent. Roy glares at her and Digg narrows his eyes; behind them, Oliver looks completely confused.

"That's the only clue you're gonna get," she tells Roy, pointing at the paper. "And it's a pretty easy one, so I'll totally judge you if you can't figure it out."

Roy grumbles and stows his bow and quiver in the glass case. Instead of changing, however, he makes his way back toward the stairs. He makes what Felicity calls his "Playboy Pout" face the whole way.

"Felicity," Oliver says softly, stepping up next to her chair. "Did you hide Roy's sweater in the freezer?"

She widens her eyes and looks up at him. "I would never do such a thing."

Oliver gives her a small smile, but Diggle is out-and-out grinning. "What sort of thing would you do?" he asks.

Roy is pounding down the stairs like a temperamental three year old then. The moment he sees Felicity he starts waving his frozen sweater through the air at her. He looks irritated, but also mildly impressed (if she had to guess). Felicity finally lets go of her grin as Digg starts laughing.

"I'd soak it first," Felicity says.

Oliver chuckles and shakes his head even as Roy glowers at the lot of them.

"Oh, it is _on,_ Felicity!"

The joke becomes a competition.


	7. The Inadvertent War II

_**Author's Note: more silliness. Continuation of the last chapter.**_

_**Spoilers: none.**_

_**Summary: Roy gets revenge for his frozen sweater.**_

* * *

><p><span><strong>The Inadvertent War II<strong>

* * *

><p>Oliver has just finished sharpening a new batch of arrows when Felicity shrieks. He leaps out of his chair in surprise, automatically searching for a threat or injury. He doesn't find either.<p>

Instead, he finds Felicity staring at the spot where the coffee pot is supposed to be, her mouth opening and closing in disbelief without actually forming words.

"Felicity?"

"He stole my coffee pot!" she exclaims. She extends her arms toward the empty space, snapping her hands out at the last minute and then waving them uselessly. "It's gone!"

"I see that," Oliver answers dryly.

"That is just cruel," Felicity laments as she stalks toward the computers. "Who even does that?"

"I'm gonna say Roy does that."

She stops mid-stride and slowly turns to glare at him. Oliver barely manages not to smile.

"I need a goat."

Felicity is not smiling. She delivers the words with a murderous expression and little inflection in her tone, and that's just the cherry on the cake of their current ridiculousness. Oliver starts laughing – really laughing.

"What?" he manages to gasp out.

"Goats!" Felicity yells as she storms to her workstation.

Oliver is pretty sure he's having an out of body experience. He moves to stand behind her chair, still chuckling, and watches as she pulls up countless images and videos of goats.

"So, what's up with the goats?"

"Roy hates them," Felicity answers. Her fingers fly over the keyboard as she floods his various inboxes with everything goat related that she could find. "Teach him to hide my coffee pot," she mutters. "He didn't even leave a note!"

Oliver glances back over his shoulder at the spot where the coffee pot should be. There's an oily sort of sheen on the top of the table, so he steps over to investigate.

"Found the note," he announces.

"What?"

Felicity appears at his side quickly. On the table, written out in the green grease paint that Oliver used to wear over his eyes, Roy has written: _need a pick me UP?_

Oliver tips his head back; Felicity follows suit, and then gasps audibly.

"How?"

The coffee pot is hanging from the rafters.

"I'm gonna need more goats."


	8. Icarus, Reborn

_**Author's Note: This is shit. I started it after 3x07 and it just decided to go wherever and do whatever it wanted. It did not turn out the way I expected it to. But I've spent the last few days on it and I've altered and re-written it like thirty times, so now I'm just done with it. It's **_**_angst-y and it's not my best, but it ends in a good place. Don't throw tomatoes at me, okay?_**

**_Spoilers: 3x07 and some (wild) speculation for 3x09 and beyond._**

**_Summary: Oliver is an all or nothing man._**

* * *

><p><span><strong>Icarus, Reborn<strong>

* * *

><p>Oliver doesn't say anything about going to visit Felicity that night. He doesn't say anything about anything, actually, because his words are the most effective noose in these gallows. He has said too much and not enough; all the wrong words for the right reasons.<p>

He refuses to release any more words into the ether. They will stay locked in the cage of his body, left to rattle around in there with the jagged pieces of his demolished heart, forever. Words have done nothing but fail him, and there's no one left to hear them, anyway; no one that he wants to share them with.

Those words – Oliver's words – are for Felicity, and he can't give them to her.

She doesn't want them.

So, Oliver doesn't say anything. He dances alone in the limbo that he's created, a discarded marionette with broken strings. This solitude and loneliness is his own fault and he knows it. He doesn't resent it any less. If anything, he resents it more. Everyone had tried to tell him – Sara, Digg, even Felicity; especially Felicity – and he ignored all of their warnings. Oliver has been blind and selfish. Worse than that, he has been complacent. He has been so secure in what he and Felicity have been creating that he didn't realize until too late that it needed to be protected. What they have, what's between them, has always been there and he was foolish enough to believe that it always would be.

Only now that it's gone does he realize that he should have fought for it, and that it needed to be fought for in the first place.

Oliver is a fool. Felicity has fought for him, and against him, and with him, from the day she agreed to join their team. She has pushed him in one direction and then pulled him in another, always sure footed as she guides him down the paths he doesn't always know he needs to go. Felicity has asked so much of him: be a better man, find another way, keep going; and every time he finds some way to meet her demands, even when he doesn't think he can. And when he can't find the strength, she gives it to him; when he can't take another step, she carries him.

Felicity is his fiercest believer. She is his most staunch supporter and honest opponent, and Oliver has delivered her into the arms of another man.

The love of his life had asked him to fight for her, and for them, and he didn't.

Oliver refused.

There are not enough words in enough languages to express his heartbreak and regret, so he doesn't try. He says nothing to Felicity, because there is nothing he can say that won't sound like devastation.

Oliver is torn in his silence. He talks to Roy and tries to help him come to grips with what he's done; he talks to Digg and does his best to dodge any questions or comments about Felicity; the only person that he doesn't talk to is Felicity, and she's the one person that he wants to hear from. She is the person that the words in his breast belong to, and he can't give them to her. So he doesn't give her any words at all outside of the ones related to missions. He knows that his behavior is noticed, but he can't bring himself to change it. _There is nothing I can say_, he wants to tell them, _without setting fire to myself. _

Diggle looks at him as though he's already an inferno. Maybe he is; it certainly feels as though he's been charred and burnt to ash.

Oliver tries to erase the image of Felicity in arms that are not his own. He tries to discard the memory of her lips beneath his own, of her arms around his neck, and her perfume, and all of the things it took him too long to realize that he loved. He doesn't want to be rid of her – that is unbearable even to think of – only the parts of him that can't function without her.

His efforts leave him hollow.

The damn fern laughs at him. At least, that's how it feels for a while: the little plant sits and winks at him in the half-darkness, as if mocking him with the lushness of its leaves. Oliver feels as though he's been untethered and set adrift in a storm, and that damn plant just continues to thrive. He stares at it sometimes; tries not to think about the day Felicity gave it to him, and fails miserably.

Ra's Al Ghul appears in Starling City two weeks before Christmas with his daughter on his heels and a weighty demand: deliver Thea in the next 48 hours or watch as the citizens of the city are slaughtered.

Felicity is the one to question why Ra's wants Oliver's sister.

Digg is the one to explain that he wants Thea for her ties to Malcolm; that the League is here to collect a blood debt. _The sins of the father_, Oliver says.

Offering himself in place of his sister is the easiest thing in the world to do. Oliver doesn't even need to think about it: he just opens his mouth and the words fly out.

"Take me," he says. "Thea has nothing to do with any of this. I'm the one who let Malcolm Merlyn go. Leave the city in peace, and I'll pay whatever debt you're here to collect."

There is yelling coming through the communication link. Oliver doesn't discern the words; it is white noise in his ear.

Ra's accepts.

It's the first time Oliver has felt relief since he watched Felicity slip through his fingers like sand in a sieve.

* * *

><p>Felicity fights, because that's what she does. Oliver has barely set foot in the lair and she's flying at him like Icarus into the sun, all fragile wings and determination.<p>

"You can't do this," she tells him firmly.

Oliver doesn't answer.

"Oliver, don't do this."

"It's already done, Felicity."

"There has to be another way."

Maybe there is, but for once Oliver doesn't care to find it. He is a coward, a fool with a broken heart who would rather dash himself against the proverbial rocks rather than stay and face his sins. He is his father's son, and he won't make anyone pay his debts for him.

Oliver is wrong: Felicity is the sun; he is Icarus.

Nyssa is the one who comes to collect him. He can't tell whom his family is angrier with: her, or him. He's pretty sure it's him.

The fern winks at him from its place on the table as he says his goodbyes.

All of the words – Felicity's words – that have been floundering in his chest make a last desperate attempt at freedom.

"Don't forget to water the fern," he tells Felicity.

She looks at him like he's crazy, or maybe like she wants to strike him. "You're going to your death."

"I don't have a choice, Felicity."

"You always have a choice, Oliver."

"I love you."

"Enough to stay?" she challenges.

Felicity and her impossible demands; this is one he can't meet.

"Enough to go," he replies.

"Why do you keep making the wrong choice?" Felicity whispers.

Oliver folds her words into his chest with all the others he'll never give her now. The clatter of their death throes creates a symphony over his footsteps as he leaves.

* * *

><p>There is snow on the ground. There are swords in his hand.<p>

There is a voice in his head (in his heart) that is not his own.

Ra's Al Ghul is trying to break him. He is dismantling Oliver piece by piece as if he were machinery, as if he is a thing to be studied and used for parts. The leader of the League of Assassins has beaten him nearly into submission. _Killer_, Ra's taunts; _murderer. Fight for your life._

"To save your city, you must be more than a man," Ra's Al Ghul says. "To save your life. Throw off the shackles of Oliver Queen, or you will die."

The other man's attacks are punishing. He is not trying to teach Oliver; there is no lesson to learn here; Ra's will either break him, or kill him in the effort.

Oliver is driven to his knees in the snow. His blood is stark against the once white ground, dirtied and condensed by their footsteps. Everything is dirty here. There is nothing of beauty on this mountainside.

There is nothing of beauty in him.

"Your refusal to do what is necessary is why you will lose. Why you will always lose."

_Why do you keep making the wrong choice?_

A cold wind sweeps over him; behind Ra's' shoulder, the pine trees are winking at him.

Ra's charges him again. The swords are heavy in Oliver's hands and his body aches. He has fought so hard for so long, and for what? A life that he's only half lived; a life that he has lived in pieces, too disparate to sew together into a whole. His heart is broken, and his life is broken, and he just wants to be done.

_What's that?_

_A fern. It thrives in low light._

Ra's cracks him in the face with the handle of his sword. Oliver crashes into the snow face first with the metallic tang of blood on his tongue.

"What do you fight for?" Ra's sneers at him. "Stay down and I will give you a clean death. You have nothing left. I see it in your eyes."

Oliver squints in an effort to bring his gaze back in to focus. He sees green - the pine trees.

_Find another way, Oliver._

_I believe in you._

He takes a deep breath and raises his eyes to the sun.

There is nothing beautiful here, but there is color; there is light. That's all the beauty he needs.

He is Oliver Queen; the Arrow; the man who fights in the face of impossible odds, despite all the reasons not to. He is an all or nothing man.

He will go home.

He will fight for his "all."

* * *

><p>Five weeks after his voluntary departure, Oliver slips into the lair like a wraith. His steps are stealthy as they carry him down the metal stairs. The space smells like he remembers. A cursory glance tells him that nothing has been changed: his vigilante outfit is arranged neatly on the mannequin, his bow and line of arrows undisturbed in their designated case.<p>

Felicity is alone. Her back is to him and her attention is clearly fixed on the computer monitors. Oliver can clearly hear her speaking to Digg and Roy over the communication link.

"All good on this end," she says. "Come home, guys."

Oliver watches her slide the Bluetooth out of her ear. He is proud of his team – his friends - proud that they have clearly continued in his stead, and that they have clearly made his crusade their own. He is no longer solely responsible for the safety and rehabilitation of Starling City.

The knowledge is freeing.

"C'mon, Oliver," Felicity mutters at the computers. "Where on Earth did you disappear to?"

"I'm still not very clear on that, actually."

Felicity catapults out of her seat and the chair skitters across the cement floor until it knocks into another table. She spins on her heel, blonde ponytail flying and a hand clutched to her startled chest.

Behind her, the fern winks at him.

"You're here." The words are whispered, but he hears them perfectly.

Felicity is sweeping across the room then, and Oliver is certain that she's going to slap him right up until the moment her arms are around his neck. She collides into him, and the force of her reaction sends shockwaves through him.

"If you ever do that again, Oliver, I will never forgive you."

"Okay," he murmurs against her ear. He tightens his hold on her.

They hold each other for a little longer. Felicity is the one to pull away, but she only does so in order to take stock of him.

"Are you okay?" she asks. "Are you hurt?"

"Sore," he answers honestly. "And a little bruised, but that's all. How are you?"

"Better now."

Oliver smiles and nods his head minutely. "Good."

He starts to step away from her (though he wants to do the opposite) when Felicity drops a hand against his chest. Oliver glances down at the appendage, all slim fingers and bright nail polish, and then up into her face.

There is no preamble.

"I love you."

There is no hesitation. Oliver has spent his life hesitating, being too late and too slow and too torn; Felicity's words have barely settled around his ears and in his heart before he's kissing her.

He feels as though he's waited his whole life to hear her say that.

The words that he has kept locked in his heart flutter and spring to life. They are Felicity's words, and he will whisper them in her ear in the sweetest litany from now until forevermore.

Oliver is an inferno, Icarus reborn with wings of flame; Felicity is the sun.

They will burn together, and their light will illuminate the heavens long after they're gone.


	9. Moments of Impact

_**Author's Note: Believe it or not, this entire idea came to me after seeing a picture of people at a Neon Splash paint party. I have no idea how it morphed into ... this. It just sort of happened. This piece is dedicated to Effie, because she makes me laugh and has an uncanny way of encouraging me at just the right moments. **_

_**I hope you like it.**_

_**Spoilers: None. This one is AU.**_

_**Summary: There will be another eternity.**_

* * *

><p><span><strong>Moments of Impact<strong>

* * *

><p>Life is a free fall, Felicity thinks; an endless spinning drop through a momentary eternity. Some people fight the weightlessness, terrified by the knowledge that nothing falls forever, and they must eventually collide with something; others embrace the freedom of it all, laughing and grasping at clouds as they go.<p>

Felicity prefers to build her wings on the way down, and hang suspended in the moments of impact.

* * *

><p>She is twenty-one, and her girlfriend has persuaded her, through unfair means, to go to a paint party. Neon Splash has come to Starling City, and Sara has made it clear that Felicity doesn't have a choice in attending. They are going, and they're going to have a great time, and she should just accept it already.<p>

In truth, Felicity thinks it sounds like fun. She has never been to a paint party but Sara is so excited that she can't resist teasing her. Felicity pretends to groan and protest, and Sara answers by threatening to throw her computers out the window if she doesn't go.

Sara's threats are mostly hollow, of course. One of the things she loves about Felicity is that she's generally up for a good time – as long it doesn't involve hurting anyone. Sara also knows that Felicity is about the furthest thing away from the grumpy old lady persona she's adopted to tease her, so she just smiles and enjoys the game.

They are having lunch with Sara's family the afternoon of the paint party. Felicity has lived in the city for just a few months and knows Detective Lance by reputation, but she has never met her girlfriend's family. She knows that Sara is nervous – her family doesn't know that she's dating a woman, or even that she would want to date a woman – so Felicity fills the hours before the meal with laughter. She doesn't care if the Lance's know who she is to Sara, because she isn't there for them, and she makes sure to remind Sara of that.

Still, Sara is nervous. When they pull into the parking lot behind the diner that the Lance family frequents, she kisses Felicity with an almost desperate affection.

"I'm sorry," Sara tells her. "I'm not ashamed of us, 'City, you know that, right?"

"Of course I do," Felicity assures her gently. "You're over thinking this. Everything will be fine. Now let's go, I'm starving."

Inside the restaurant, Sara's sister is the only one waiting for them. Sara's parents have apparently been called away by their respective jobs; Felicity sees the disappointment in her girlfriend's face even as she feels the tension leave her body. She wants to take Sara's hand and give it a reassuring squeeze, or give her a kiss and tease her about the evils of excessive worry; instead, she bumps her hip playfully with her own and smiles.

Sara introduces Felicity to Laurel and slides into the booth across from her sister. Tommy appears just then with a plate of bacon that has obviously been filched from somewhere.

"Before you start yelling," Tommy says, because Laurel has opened her mouth to protest, "I know the cook."

"Does he know you stole a plate of bacon?" Laurel grouses.

"Even better, he gave it to me. Now stop glaring at me like that and dig in."

"Tommy, this is Felicity," Sara introduces. "Laurel's worst half."

Tommy takes the opportunity to shove the paper wrapper for his straw into the straw itself and spit it at Sara, who squeals and retaliates by catapulting a stack of napkins at him.

Felicity shakes the hand that Tommy offers her when he's done terrorizing Sara. His blue eyes are a nice contrast to his dark hair, and his smile is dazzling. She feels like she's just been introduced to a pair of models; it's a little unfair.

Unfair catapults straight into ridiculous when, moments later, Felicity hears Tommy call out an excited greeting.

"Oliver!"

The man belonging to the name appears at the end of the table, grinning widely. He is obviously a good friend, because everyone greets this Oliver warmly even as Tommy and Laurel are sliding down the bench to give him space to sit down; he's also one of the most beautiful people Felicity has ever seen.

He introduces himself. "Hi, I'm Oliver."

"Felicity," she murmurs, once again shaking the hand that is offered to her. Then, perhaps a little overwhelmed by this group of beautiful people, she turns to Sara and blurts, "Why does everyone you know look like they just stepped off a runway?"

The table erupts in laughter. Felicity blushes and pins her lips together in a firm line as she debates whether or not to give her usual "this person is prone to inappropriate rambling" disclaimer she saves for first meetings.

"Sorry," Felicity mumbles nervously. "I didn't mean that. Well, I did mean it, since you're all clearly very beautiful … or, well, I guess Laurel is just beautiful – wait! Not just beautiful – gorgeous. I meant gorgeous, like that should just be part of your name, gorgeous Laurel. I just meant that men aren't usually called beautiful, ya know, even if they do look like they just stepped out of a Greek myth, and …" Felicity's face is burning. That had obviously gotten away from her, though Laurel and Tommy are still cracking up. She turns to her girlfriend and squeaks, "Oh my god, Sara, why haven't you made me shut up yet? Please shut me up!"

She is not expecting Sara to comply by kissing her quite suddenly, but that's exactly what happens. One minute Sara is grinning at her, and the next her lips are moving over Felicity's in a kiss so tender that it can only be called sweet. Felicity forgets about her embarrassment long enough to kiss her back.

When she remembers that they aren't alone – and that Sara's family (and probably friends) don't know about their relationship, Felicity turns to face their now silent company. She is not in danger of slipping into a ramble again: she is ready to fight, if the need arises.

Laurel has one eyebrow arched, but she doesn't look overly surprised; Tommy's mouth is hanging open a little; and Oliver is simply sitting quietly, a gentle smile on his face.

"Wait, you're lesbians?" Tommy looks torn between being horrified that he's actually said the words aloud, and curious about the answer.

"No." Felicity's tone is hard even though her answer is only one word.

"Bi?" Tommy presses.

Sara squirms uncomfortably next to her. Felicity's jaw tightens. "No."

"But you are together?"

"Tommy!" Laurel hisses. "Are you serious right now? We are never having sex again if you don't shut up right now."

"Sorry!" Tommy apologizes quickly. "I didn't mean to be rude, I just …"

"So who would I be?" Oliver asks then. His tone is light and not at all forced.

When Felicity looks at him, he's giving her a half-grin that tugs at something in her chest. He's not looking at Tommy or Laurel; his blue eyes are fixed on her face, and they only slide away to catch Sara's gaze. His smile widens when Sara finally looks at him.

"What?" Felicity is confused.

"You said we looked like Greek gods," Oliver reminds her teasingly. "So who would I be?"

Sara finally pipes up from beside Felicity. "She did not call you a god, Ollie. She said 'Greek myth'."

"Close enough," Ollie retorted. "So? I'm partial to Hercules, I think."

Felicity smiles for the first time since Sara kissed her. Her heart is so full of gratitude for the man across from her that she can't immediately find anything to say. The way he's looking at her makes her think that maybe he understands.

"Not Hercules," Felicity finally manages. "Maybe A -."

"Oh god, 'City, don't say Adonis," Sara interrupts her, lively once again. "He'll never let us forget it."

"And his over-inflated ego doesn't need the boost," Tommy adds.

"It doesn't need any boosting at all," Laurel teases.

"Would you guys shut up and let the lady talk?" Oliver chides.

"I was going to say Achilles," Felicity finishes.

Though she thinks Adonis might not be so far off.

By the time eleven p.m. rolls around, Sara has forgotten about the debacle at lunch. She's a ball of excited energy in Felicity's living room, nattering excitedly about the impending paint party.

"You're gonna love it, 'City!" She exclaims. "You love color almost as much as I love dancing. It's a win-win!"

Felicity does end up loving it, but not because of the glowing neon paint that falls through the air and splashes her clothes, or how stellar her lips look with their glow in the dark pink lipstick.

She loves it because she's on her way back from the bathroom when she trips over one of those rubber speed bumps equipment crews use to shield power cords from excited crowds. The flashing strobe lights are great for dancing, but not so much for basic navigation purposes; Felicity braces herself for impact.

The impact comes, but not in the form of a concrete floor; rather, it's two iron hands that lock over her hipbones like vices. Felicity takes a shaky breath and turns to face her rescuer.

It's Oliver.

"Oh," she breathes out, the sound swallowed by the pulsing music. "Thank you."

He shouldn't be able to hear her, but he does. "Are you okay?"

Felicity nods mutely. His hands are still on her hips; the skin beneath them feels like it's burning.

"What are you doing here?"

"Tommy talked me in to coming. You?"

"Sara," she explains simply.

They haven't moved. Felicity is acutely aware of how close they are standing and how the bottom hem of her tank top has pulled up just enough that Oliver's thumbs are now pressing into her bare skin. His arms and torso are streaked with neon paint, and there's a fluorescent green stripe across one of his cheeks.

She doesn't care if it's weird to call men beautiful, because Oliver Queen is exactly that. He is Achilles, and Adonis, and probably every other ridiculously handsome god in the Greek pantheon. Or Roman, for that matter.

"Thank you," Felicity half yells. She wants to be sure she hears him. "For earlier, in the restaurant. Sara …"

"Doesn't have to explain herself to anyone," Oliver interrupts. "And neither do you."

Whatever is in her chest now is definitely more than gratitude, but Felicity doesn't have the wisdom – or courage – to properly identify it. Instead, she hoists herself onto the tips of her toes and hopes that the music drowns out her surprised gasp as Oliver's hands tighten on her hips and their chests brush.

Felicity presses a kiss into the stubble on his cheek. Her lips leave a perfect neon impression on his skin.

Oliver doesn't wipe it away, and even when the paint has been washed away the invisible mark remains.

This is how she falls.

* * *

><p>Felicity is twenty-six, and she is crying.<p>

To be fair, the tears are happy ones. She's standing in a room full of impeccably dressed people, half-full champagne flute in one hand as she watches Tommy and Laurel share their first dance as a wedded couple.

Felicity finds it surreal that she's here at all. She had no way of knowing all those years ago that a true and lasting friendship would come out of her relationship with Sara, or that Tommy would make up for his insensitive questions by becoming the brother she'd never had, but those things had happened anyway. She likes Laurel, though the two had never really hit it off, and feels nothing but happiness for her friends as she watches them move around the dance floor.

Sara appears next to her halfway through the song. Her bubbliness has been tempered somewhat over the years, but she gives Felicity the same smile that she always has, all sunshine and white teeth.

"I finally found you," Sara gushes. She pulls Felicity in for a tight hug. "You look beautiful, 'City."

"Thank you, so do you."

"There's someone I want you to meet." Sara reaches behind her to grab a hand, and then she's tugging someone forward.

The woman that steps around Sara is stunning. She has a full head of dark hair and piercing eyes, offset beautifully by the deep maroon color of her gown. Felicity is awed, and slightly intimidated without knowing why.

"Felicity, this is Nyssa. Nyssa, this is Felicity."

"The pleasure is mine," Nyssa says in a smoothly accented voice. "Sara has told me much about you."

Felicity raises her eyebrows at Sara even as she flushes and tries to formulate an answer. "I hope that's a good thing," she says lamely. "I mean, I hope she said good things about me. Not that I think she'd say bad things about me, we did part on good terms after all, and I don't think I did anything to … you know what, I'm going to stop there. It's a pleasure to meet you, Nyssa."

Sara is beaming at her. "You're still cute," she says.

"Sara!" Quentin Lance calls suddenly. "We need you for pictures."

"Be right back." Sara excuses herself with a quick kiss to Nyssa's lips.

Nyssa moves into the space next to Felicity that Sara has just vacated. It's clear that her eyes are tracking her girlfriend through the crowd.

"Sara tells me that you were her first girlfriend," Nyssa starts quietly.

Felicity tenses automatically. "This isn't the jealous girlfriend routine, is it? Because that was like a hundred years ago. Well, not really, but -."

"This is not a routine," Nyssa interrupts evenly. Felicity thinks she might be smiling. "I only wish to say thank you. Sara told me that you were a great source of happiness and support for her in a difficult time. I am simply glad to meet the woman who means so much to someone I love."

Felicity blinks in surprise. Then, a dazzling smile lights her face and she has to swallow against a sudden influx of tears that threaten to spill over.

"Thank you," she manages to say. "That means a lot. And I'm glad that you and Sara have found each other."

"Nyssa!" Sara is waving excitedly from across the room.

"I will see you again, Felicity." Nyssa says it like it's a foregone conclusion.

Maybe it is.

"I look forward to it, Nyssa."

When she's alone again, Felicity excuses herself from the crowd. She finishes her champagne and then exchanges the empty flute for a full one before slipping out of the crowded reception hall. The sun is setting on a beautiful August day. She steps out into the impeccably manicured garden behind the hall, her steps a whisper over the grass as she moves to the small fountain in the middle of the green.

The fresh, open air does wonders for her spirit after so much time spent in the company of strangers.

"Hey," a quiet voice greets.

Felicity turns her head and feels like the air is knocked from her lungs. Oliver is standing less than five feet from her. He has one hand in his pants pocket and the other has his suit jacket slung over one shoulder.

She has not seen him in years, and yet it strikes her again how unfair it is that one person can be so attractive.

"Hey," Felicity manages to answer.

Oliver gives her a quiet smile as he approaches. Something about the quirk of his lips and the light in his eyes transports Felicity back through the years, to an over bright booth in a restaurant and that same look, directed at her over a table and a too tense moment.

"Let me guess. You're hiding from a pesky grandmother who keeps asking when you and Mr. Right are going to have a wedding of your own?" Oliver teases.

Felicity breathes out a quiet laugh and shakes her head. She taps a manicured fingernail against her champagne flute.

"No. Mr. Right doesn't exist. Well, I'm sure he does, somewhere, I just haven't met him yet."

"Oh?"

"Well, if I have then he's certainly taking his time making himself known," Felicity said dryly.

"Maybe he's dreaming about you."

"Well, that's unfortunate."

"Why?" Oliver queries.

"Because dreams can only take you so far. Eventually, you have to fight for what you want."

Oliver watches her quietly. He doesn't speak, and she doesn't feel the need to fill the silence, so they stand together in the dying sunlight as it fades into twilight. Their proximity should feel strange – they know next to nothing about each other, and have only talked a handful of times in as many years – but it doesn't. No, Felicity feels perfectly at ease in their shared silence.

Then, curious, she turns a grin on him. "What about you? Hiding from a nosy grandma? Ooh, or maybe an aunt?"

Felicity is teasing, but Oliver fixes her with a serious expression. He isn't angry; the sentiment in his gaze is more like … interest, or maybe some kind of challenge.

"What do you think?"

The question reminds her of another one about Greek myths.

She's not sure if he'll remember – he probably won't, because it was years ago and there's no reason he should – but she says it anyway. "I think you could pass for Hercules."

Oliver laughs. The sound is rich and it transforms his face, revealing perfect teeth and tiny laugh lines that make his bright eyes dance.

Now he is Adonis, Felicity thinks, a laughing Grecian myth brought to life in a purple twilight.

She feels embarrassed by her train of thoughts and starts speaking again to derail them. "I think you're hiding from all of them," she starts. Her voice is quieter than she expected, but Oliver hears her. "All those watching eyes, expecting you to be who they think you are. Who they want you to be."

Oliver isn't laughing anymore. He tosses his suit jacket rather carelessly onto the grass and then steps into Felicity's personal space. Without a word he liberates the champagne flute from her hands and bends down to place it on the stone lip of the fountain.

"Dance with me," he whispers when he's in front of her again.

Felicity can't tell if he's asking her or telling her. Either way, there isn't a single part of her that wants to refuse. She holds up her arms and waits for him to step into them; her heart spirals down into her stomach and then back up into her throat as his arm slides around her waist.

People are planets, Felicity thinks, each with their own gravitational pull. She is being pulled into Oliver's orbit, slipping further out of her own each time they meet; the further she goes the more permanent the shift will be. There are many things that Felicity doesn't know – can't know – or understand, but she does know this: they will create galaxies together, or explode in a supernova.

She has never felt so drawn to another person.

Oliver moves them easily over the grass. Light strains of music filter out from the reception hall, but he's not listening to it. He can hear Felicity's soft breathing under the gurgle of the fountain, and the distant din of city noise. The symphony is an unconventional one, but perfect for this moment.

A phantom kiss tingles along his cheek.

He met Felicity what feels like a lifetime ago. In the intervening years, amongst learning how to be a businessman and a nightclub owner; between the loss of his father and the strain on his relationship with his mother; Oliver has never managed to forget Felicity Smoak. She has been a wraith and a memory, a curiosity and a lost opportunity, but she has never been far from his thoughts.

"Felicity," he says after a long silence.

"Hmm?" she hums, tipping her head back to look at him.

"Would you like to have dinner with me?"

Felicity's smile is dazzling. "Yes."

This is how she flies.

* * *

><p>Felicity is twenty-eight, and she's reading the new manifesto for the Applied Sciences division of Queen Consolidated. She has written and revised the document no less than two thousand times already, but she hates speeches and wants to make sure that everything is perfect. She has never been the head of a division before and thinks that it would be bad form to completely screw up her first public speech.<p>

"Are you sure this is good enough?" Felicity asks uncertainly.

The lips that are pressing kisses along the length of her naked back pull up into a grin.

"It's perfect, Felicity," Oliver replies, his lips tickling as they form the words against her skin. "It was perfect the last twenty times you asked."

"I just want to be sure." She frowns at the open file on her tablet.

Oliver reaches out a long, sculpted arm and pries the electronic device out of Felicity's hands. He puts it on the bedside table next to her glasses and ignores her protestations.

"It's Saturday," Oliver tells her. "Saturdays are not for working."

The morning sunlight is streaming in through the window in ribbons of gold and Oliver has resumed leaving a trail of kisses over her back. The sheet has pooled around their waists and Felicity can feel the brush of his bare chest against her side as he makes his way up to her shoulder.

She turns her head and watches as he drops a kiss there and then replaces his lips with his chin.

There is warmth in the air and warmth in her heart, and Felicity is so happy that she feels as though she's floating.

"You're going to blow them away, Felicity." He punctuates his words by pressing another kiss into her shoulder. "Everyone will love you, and you'll change the world."

Felicity laughs and lifts her shoulder until Oliver pulls back enough for her to turn onto her back beneath him. He grins and settles on top of her, bare chest to bare chest, and brushes loose strands of yellow curls out of her face.

"Everyone will love me, huh?" she teases.

Oliver lowers his face against the stretch of skin above her collarbone and smiles when she laughs at the tickle of his stubble.

"Well, they'll love you appropriately," he amends. He nips at her skin and then kisses the same spot. "I'll be forced to fire them all if they love you too much."

Felicity grins wickedly even though he can't see her. "Does that mean now is a bad time to tell you that the new head of the IT division asked me out to dinner on Friday?"

"What?" Oliver rears his head back so quickly she can almost hear the whiplash. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," she affirms. "He stopped me on my way out of the office and asked if I'd be interested in having drinks with him."

"Did you tell him you were already in a serious relationship?"

"I didn't need to. You showed up five seconds later and asked if I was ready to go home. I'm surprised you didn't see the look he gave you."

"It's hard to see anyone else when you're around," Oliver replies. Then, with a furrow between his brows and a dark scowl he says, "He is so fired come Monday."

Felicity laughs. "You're not firing him, Oliver."

He stares down at the woman beneath him. She is a force of nature, the purest incarnation of everything he'd never believed could exist; in all of the worlds in all of the universes, he could never find another like her. Oliver has never loved anyone like he loves Felicity Smoak, and he never will. He never wants to.

"Marry me."

Her crystalline eyes go wide and then she's laughing again. "It was just an invitation for drinks, Oliver, he didn't know any better!"

Oliver's head tips to one side in confusion. "What?" Then, "No, forget that guy. I mean it, Felicity. Marry me. I love you, and I want to marry you."

Felicity doesn't say anything for a long minute. She stares up at him, gleaning what she can from his expression, and Oliver lets her. He doesn't squirm, or try to fill the silence: he knows that she does this when she's trying to judge his intent and weigh his words. It doesn't scare him the way it used to.

"You've thought about this before, haven't you?"

Oliver kisses her quickly and then leans over to slide the bottom drawer of his nightstand open. With one hand he opens the velvet box that's been waiting for this moment for months and frees the ring inside.

He situates himself above her again and balances on his elbows. Oliver pinches either side of the band between both of his thumbs and pointer fingers and holds it up just in front of his nose, fixing his eyes on Felicity over the diamond.

"I haven't stopped thinking about it," he admits.

Felicity is silent for another heartbeat and then she's half-laughing, half-crying around her words. "Of course I'll marry you, Oliver."

He barely has time to slip the ring on her finger before she's pulling him down against her chest and into a flurry of kisses that leave him breathless.

The room fills suddenly with the shrill ring of Felicity's cell phone. She groans and reaches for it blindly; when she stops kissing him and turns her head to read the caller ID, Oliver starts kissing along her jawline.

"It's Digg," she tells him. Then, "What's up, Digg?"

Felicity disappears from beneath him as if by magic. Confused, Oliver shouts a protest and half turns onto his side to glare at her.

"We'll be right there!"

Oliver has the smallest moment to appreciate the sight of his fiancée – and that word has the most remarkable affect on his happiness – naked and beaming in scattered shafts of sunlight before she's spouting words so quickly he almost doesn't catch them.

"Lyla had the baby! Get up; we have to go to the hospital. Where's the bunny we bought last week, we can't forget to take it. Should we stop and get them something to eat? Hospital food is so disgusting …"

Felicity is so busy rushing to get dressed that she doesn't notice that Oliver is still in bed. He's moved into a sitting position and he's watching her zip back and forth through the room, a hurried string of words falling from her mouth as she does so.

Oliver smiles. He will try for the rest of his life to find any combination of words that can adequately encompass what he feels for this woman, and what she has given him.

He never does, but he never stops trying; neither does she.

This is how she lives.

* * *

><p>Life is all about the moments of impact and learning to love the fall, she thinks; at the end of hers, Felicity laughs into the wind and opens her arms to forever.<p>

There will be another eternity, and Oliver is waiting for her.

Nothing falls forever.


	10. Adventures in Yiddish

_**AN: this is just a bit of silliness that came about when I realized that Oliver used a Yiddish word in the Flash crossover. (It was hock, if you didn't know, and it means to pester/nag). Then I started thinking about Oliver picking up all these Yiddish words from Felicity without realizing it - Digg notices, of course, and really, he's just so fed up with these idiots. I posted this on my tumblr a little bit ago, but have been slow adding it over here.**_

_**Spoilers: None.**_

_**Summary: Digg would really like to just slap Oliver and say, "Do you even hear yourself right now, man?"**_

* * *

><p><span><strong>Adventures in Yiddish<strong>

* * *

><p>Oliver was glaring ferociously as he stalked across the lair.<p>

"Roy!" he snapped.

The younger man's head reared back and he spun on his heel to face his glowering mentor, nearly smacking his hip off of the computer table as he did so. Next to him, Felicity turned her chair and raised her eyebrows at Oliver.

He ignored her and kept his attention on Roy.

"What is this doing on the floor?" Oliver groused.

He held up a small, multicolored ball that looked like it had been woven together.

"Is that a hackey sack?" Felicity queried.

At the same time, Roy answered, "It's supposed to improve your concentration!"

Oliver tossed the ball to him with slightly more force than necessary, but Roy caught it easily.

"He tripped over it," Digg explained from behind Oliver.

"How do you trip on a …" Roy started.

"This is not a place for your tchotchkes, Roy. Leave it at home."

Oliver turned around and found Digg standing in front of the glass case that stored his bow. He raised an eyebrow at him in a silent request for him to move; Digg answered by giving him a strange look and furrowing his brow. He opened his mouth to say something and then changed his mind. With a shake of his head, Digg sighed in veiled defeat and stepped aside.

Digg shot a glance at Felicity, expecting to find a sympathizer, and was disappointed. She mouthed the word "what?" at him and tipped her head so that she could see around Roy – who was idly tossing the hackey sack in the air.

Never mind, Digg told himself. Not a big deal.

* * *

><p>Oliver was reclining in Felicity's computer chair. He had one elbow propped on the table and his chin in his hand as he stared at the network of industrial piping that crisscrossed the back wall. Above him, Verdant pumped out a steady staccato of bass beats that drifted through the floor in a rhythm that was just muffled enough to be soothing.<p>

"Hey," a soft voice called.

Oliver turned his head over his shoulder and caught sight of Felicity in his peripheral vision. He dropped his hand away from his chin but didn't move otherwise.

"What are you doing down here?" Felicity asked as she stepped into the space next to him.

"Hiding."

Felicity's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline as she turned and braced her butt against the computer desk so that they could be face to face. She dropped her purse on the table and then rested her hands on the edge.

"Hiding from what? Or whom?"

"Thea. She thought it would be a good idea to get farshnickert last night."

"Ooh." Felicity winced sympathetically. "Bad hangover, huh?"

"I think that's putting it mildly."

Footsteps on the stairs interrupted their conversation. Oliver knew that it was Digg by the way Felicity smiled; he didn't turn completely around, but he did angle himself so that he could see both of his friends.

"What's up?" Digg queried. "Did I miss something?"

"I was just gonna run some diagnostics on the computers," Felicity explained. "Oliver's hiding from a hung over Thea."

"She had a little too much to drink last night?"

"You could say that. The little nudnik," Oliver muttered dryly.

Felicity laughed and pushed herself off of the table. She made a little shooing motion with her hand in an attempt to dislodge him from her chair, but Oliver just gave her a bit of a grin and pushed himself – and the chair – farther away from her and the desk.

"Now who's being a nudnik," Felicity chided. The reprimand was undercut by the smirk she was trying to hide. "I wonder where Thea could have learned it from?"

"And what, exactly, is a nudnik?" Digg deadpanned.

Oliver and Felicity looked at him at the same time.

"Oh, it's Yiddish," Felicity said. "It means pest."

Digg crossed his arm. "Uh huh." He cut narrowed eyes at Oliver.

"What?" Oliver asked when he noticed his friend staring.

Somehow, that made Digg's glare become more pronounced. He snorted in exasperation. "Nothing, man."

"Did you just roll your eyes at me?"

Digg was saved from having to answer by the sound of Oliver's phone ringing.

"It's Thea," he announced.

"Oh, you should probably answer. She might need more Ibuprofen or something," Felicity mused.

"Fine, but if she starts kvetching you're talking to her," Oliver threatened.

Digg rolled his eyes – again – and threw his hands up in a wordless cry of "I give up!"

No one noticed.

* * *

><p>"Oliver, just get in there and do the whole 'failed this city' shtick so we can get on with it!" Felicity hissed.<p>

There was a pause over the comm link. "It's not a shtick."

"Fine, it's not a shtick," Felicity agreed. Her tone of voice made it clear that she didn't actually agree at all.

"Mom?" Roy couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or entertained. "Dad? Can we go kick some bad guys' asses now?"

"Shut it, Roy!" Felicity snapped.

Simultaneously, Oliver said, "Don't be a shmuck, Roy."

"I hate all of you," Digg stated in a matter-of-fact tone.


	11. Folie a Deux

_**AN: I clearly don't have two brain cells left to rub together after this week. So I'll go ahead and apologize for this in advance. It's just ... it happened. Yeah. Sorry. Obviously it won't happen on the show, but the muse wanted it, so I wrote it.**_

_**Spoilers: 3x09 (sort of).**_

_**Summary: Her hollowness looks an awful lot like a person.**_

* * *

><p><span><em><strong>Folie à Deux<strong>_

* * *

><p>She exists in hollow spaces, now. The club is full of people and the lair is full of equipment, but both are desolate wastelands to her. Without Oliver's presence they are empty of the only thing that could truly fill them.<p>

Felicity is empty. Empty and hollow, a living network of shadowed caverns that carry the echo of who she was; who they should have been.

She knows what John has come to tell her before he manages to spit out the words. She knows it by the look on his face and the awful creaking thing in her chest that combusts without warning. Felicity looks at John and feels the grief settle on her shoulders like a mantle.

John holds her while she cries. Felicity doesn't ask him if he's sure, or what happened, or why; she doesn't say anything. She just clings to his shirt while the burning nothingness that is sweeping through her devours everything that once made her Felicity Smoak.

Felicity doesn't leave the lair that night. When the tears have slowed and she's found some semblance of a voice she asks John to leave. She knows that he doesn't want to, that it goes against his instincts, but, finally, he does it anyway.

She reaches for the green stretch of leather in a glass case. The moment her hand brushes over the fabric Felicity stills; her intentions are snuffed out in a heartbeat. She wants to – had meant to pull that hood off that mannequin and pull it around herself, but now she doesn't think she can bring herself to do it. Oliver had hung it carefully – he always does – and Felicity can only stare at it.

The hood stays in the case. Felicity drops her hand and crosses the room to Oliver's bed, where she slips off her glasses and pulls herself up onto its raised platform. She kicks off her shoes – doesn't even bother to undo the straps, just tugs at them and wiggles her feet until the material bites at her skin and eventually slides off – and burrows into the pillow.

Tomorrow, she tells herself; there's always tomorrow.

Felicity slides Oliver's blanket over her head and doesn't think about the empty places.

* * *

><p>Starling City needs to be protected. In the wake of their loss, Roy and Diggle step up their game; Laurel shows up one night talking about how she wants to take up the identity of the Canary in honor of Sara.<p>

Felicity barely registers her words. Too many people to honor; too many crusades to take up in memory of people they'll never see again.

"So and so would want this."

"Keep the memory alive."

"Fight the good fight."

Words, so many words, and Felicity hates them all. She takes up her requisite spot behind the computers night after night anyway. She guides what's left of Team Arrow – her team – through the streets and their missions just as surely as she always has; she doesn't blink when Laurel is added to the roster, or when Ray calls her with questions or requests for help with his superhero suit.

Felicity feels like she hasn't spoken in ages when she takes Digg and Roy aside and tells them her plan. Time has stopped being linear for her then; she might say it the next day, or a few days later, or even weeks later. The "when" doesn't matter – not to her, and probably not to them either. Felicity's voice doesn't shake and she doesn't cry. She tips her chin up and looks her friends in the eye.

"We're going to bring him home." The words are a statement.

"How are we gonna find him?" Roy speaks quietly.

She found him when he went back to Lian Yu. She found him when he hid in the basement of a building she didn't know existed. Finding Oliver is what Felicity does – did – and she will call in every favor she's ever earned if she needs to. Digg had helped her before, and Amanda Waller, and they'll help her again. Waller may be hesitant, but Felicity will hack every ARGUS system that exists and plant Super Virus 2.0 in each one until she agrees, if need be.

"I'll find him," Felicity says. "Sara came home, and so …" her voice breaks there and the thickness in her throat threatens to suffocate her. Felicity swallows and forces the words out. "So will Oliver."

* * *

><p>Felicity dreams of him at night, and any other time she manages to slumber. Over and over again Oliver comes to her: he's wearing different clothes and they're in different places, and sometimes they have aged. She dreams of him in half-light and pastel colors; sometimes he holds her or brushes her face – once he leans in to kiss her again – but he never speaks.<p>

She sees his lips move and feels the words in the thrum of her heartbeat. Oliver's I love you is etched into her bones, and when she dies they'll cut open her chest and find them seared on her heart. Oliver comes to her in dreams and he always tells her that he loves her, but she never hears those words again.

She doesn't hear them, and she doesn't say them. Felicity didn't say those words when she had the chance, and now there will never be another chance that matters.

The hollow places become her new safe havens. They all look the same: six feet of muscle and scars and stubble that she still sometimes feels ghosting over her forehead. She chases the echo of him some nights, when the shadows play tricks on her eyes and the darkness feels as though it'll last forever; those times, Digg or Roy find her curled in on herself in the bed that still smells like the man she lost.

Felicity lies on the mattress and imagines she's pressing herself into the imprint of his body, and thinks about leaving Starling City for good.

She doesn't, because Oliver has gone where she cannot follow.

* * *

><p>Felicity is losing touch with reality. That's the only explanation for why she suddenly starts seeing him in places he isn't: climbing the salmon ladder without making a sound; standing in front of the glass case that houses his bow; pulling the hood over his head. Or maybe she's not going crazy, and these are just different kinds of dreams.<p>

After the second or third time she sees him, Felicity stops being surprised. Instead, she makes it a point to walk by wherever Phantom Oliver appears and speak to him.

The words are always the same. "I love you."

Somehow it becomes a game. Felicity sees a young Oliver – he has slightly longer hair and his face is not the one that she's come to know – in the hallway of her townhouse. She tells him she loves him and he grins. Oliver is voiceless – always voiceless – but the echo of his I love you rings out in the emptiness of her chest.

Her Oliver is waiting for her behind her desk in his old office. She tells him she loves him and he shakes his head in exasperation before he blows out a soundless breath; she sees him hovering over her computers with streaks of grey hair at his temples. She tells him she loves him, and he looks at her like she hung the moon as his lips form the words in response.

She doesn't tell her friends about the dreams, or the game.

* * *

><p>"Tell me something, Felicity. Anything." Digg stands in front of her with a gentle expression and a desperate need to draw something out of his blonde friend.<p>

Felicity hasn't been mute, exactly, but her silence is deafening. Where once there were quick words and long-winded, sometimes silly monologues, there is only the relay of information in tired tones.

"What do you want me to say, Digg?"

"Anything," Roy pipes up. He's standing on the other side of her chair. "Just not directions, or coordinates."

She knows what they want - what they're asking: _say something that sounds like you, Felicity. Say something that matters. _

"He told me he loved me." What a tragedy, she thinks. What a cruel chaos we live in. "He told me he loved me, and I didn't say it back. And now he's dead. There's nothing else to say."

She goes home and dreams that they're standing in that hospital hallway again. Oliver's hands are on her face.

"I think I'd give up everything to hear your voice again," she tells him. Then, "I love you."

When she wakes, Felicity is certain that she's forgotten the sound of Oliver Queen's voice.

* * *

><p>She sees him standing against the medical table. He's shirtless and his back is to her, and his hair is long enough to look a little silly. When she steps off the last stair he turns to look at her; he's clearly exhausted and been through hell, but he watches her like she's the reason the world continues to turn.<p>

This is her Oliver, with different hair, tired after a hard fight and too many hours in the streets. Seeing Phantom Oliver only hurts her today, though, because she'll never be able to tell him that she loves him and can't remember what his voice sounds like. She doesn't want to see this vision of him today.

She doesn't want to do anything today.

Digg is standing in the middle of the room. He's not moving or speaking, just watching her.

Game or not – dream or not – she doesn't miss these chances. Felicity moves just close enough to speak to this version of Oliver and keeps her voice quiet. "I love you."

She trudges over to Digg on lead feet and holds up her destroyed cell phone.

"Ran over my phone," she informs him. "I'm just gonna download the info and swipe it before getting a new one."

"Felicity."

"I know, it was -."

"Felicity."

The hollowness in her – that six foot empty space that should be muscles and scars and stubble – cracks her chest open. She feels the fissures as all that she is threatens to be pulled apart at the seams; that burning nothingness that she hasn't felt since the day Oliver died dances down her nerve endings and ignites her skin.

Felicity closes her eyes. "John." Her voice cracks. "I think something's wrong with me. I think … Do you ever see ghosts? Not just, like, in your dreams, but when you're awake? Like they're standing there and you feel like you can almost touch them? I think I'm losing my mind, Digg."

"Felicity."

She turns around and doesn't realize that she's crying until she opens her eyes and feels the tears tickle-slide down her cheeks. Phantom Oliver is maybe five feet from her.

So many words, and Felicity hates them all. "I know I said I'd give up everything," she starts in a tear-thickened voice, "But I didn't mean my sanity. Please. Please. I don't want to be crazy."

"You're not crazy, Felicity," Digg reassures her.

"I can't do this. I can't keep talking to a ghost, I can't …"

Phantom Oliver closes the gap between them. Felicity hates him in that moment, this and every previous spectral image of the man she loves – loved. She hates that he's here, and that he isn't, and that he's literally driving her crazy.

A heavy hand loops cautiously around her wrist. The skin is warm and rough as it slides over hers and guides her hand away from her side.

"You're okay, Felicity. I'm here. I'm right here."

Oliver Queen has been dead for six weeks when Felicity finally, truly, allows herself to unravel.

She sobs and it comes out as a broken, keening sort of sound that tumbles over itself as it cuts through the air. The hand around her wrist tightens and tugs her forward. Felicity collides with everything that she's lost: six feet of muscle and scars and stubble that ghosts over the skin of her forehead.

Felicity clutches at Oliver and shakes as if she is the only fault line in an earthquake. She curls her hands into him – one against his chest and one at the nape of his neck – and feels her nails dig into flesh.

He is dead and she is crazy, and now neither of those things matter.

* * *

><p>She wakes without knowing that she was asleep.<p>

Felicity opens dry, aching eyes and sees the steel legs of industrial tables; a long grey stretch of concrete. Beneath her ear there is warm skin and a steady heartbeat.

"Oliver?"

"I'm here."

She lifts her head from his chest. They are on the floor – or, more accurately, Oliver is on the floor and Felicity is half-curled in on herself in his lap. She licks her lips and studies his face. Underneath that impossible hair is the face of the man she knows and loves.

"Digg?" Felicity casts her eyes over the room until she finds the other man standing quietly near the medical table.

Digg nods. "He's really here."

Felicity uncurls herself and feels Oliver's arms loosen around her to accommodate the movement. Oliver is alive; she's not crazy; how the hell … when –

"I think I need to go home," she says.

Tomorrow, she tells herself; there's always tomorrow.

* * *

><p>"I heard you," Oliver tells her one day.<p>

"What?"

"I heard you," he repeats. "Like you were right there, whispering in my ear. I love you. It's the only thing you'd say, but you always said it."

"And I always will," Felicity answers, and kisses him.

And she always does.


End file.
